Primary
cyclophosphamide-naive clonogenic blasts from 32 patients with newly diagnosed
acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were tested for their in vitro sensitivity to an "activated"
cyclophosphamide, viz.,
mafosfamide, using leukemic progenitor cell (LPC) colony assays. Marked interpatient variation in the responses of LPC from newly diagnosed patients to
mafosfamide prompted assessment of
mafosfamide sensitivity in relation to more frequently measured parameters of newly diagnosed ALL. Only immunophenotype and sex showed a significant association with the intrinsic
mafosfamide sensitivity of LPC. LPC from T-lineage ALL patients were more resistant to
mafosfamide than LPC from B-lineage ALL patients, as reflected by 1.8-fold and 4.3-fold higher mean SF10 and SF20 (surviving fractions of ALL LPC of 10 and 20 microM
mafosfamide, respectively) values. LPC from male patients were more resistant to
mafosfamide than LPC from female patients, as reflected by 1.9-fold and 4.8-fold higher mean SF10 and SF20 values. In comparison to T-lineage ALL patients, a significantly greater fraction of B-lineage ALL patients had
mafosfamide-sensitive LPC with SF10 values of < 0.25 (61% vs 11%, P = 0.01). Notably, all four cases exhibiting resistance to
mafosfamide, i.e., SF20 > or = 0.5, were males with T-lineage ALL. In order to exclude the influence of sex as a confounding factor in the observed immunophenotype-
mafosfamide sensitivity association, we also compared the
mafosfamide sensitivities of LPC from male patients only. The means of SF10, and SF20 values of LPC from male T-lineage ALL patients were 1.5- and 3.2-fold higher than those of LPC from male B-lineage ALL patients (P < 0.1). Thus, in the male patient subgroup, the immunophenotype-
mafosfamide sensitivity association remained significant.