Oxymetholone in aplastic anaemia

摘要

Thirty-one patients with aplastic anaemia were treated with oxymetholone. Twenty-eight patients lived beyond 2 months and of these eleven patients showed clinical and haematological improvement. Ten of these had some active erythropoietic areas as shown by bone marrow biopsies and by the presence of an elevated reticulocyte count in the peripheral blood. Two patients who responded in spite of a markedly hypoplastic marrow and reticulocytopenia became oxymetholone dependent and relapsed when the drug was withdrawn. They failed to respond a second time when oxymetholone was re-introduced. Side effects were frequent. These were mostly tolerable and reversible on reduction of the dose but three patients died of acute myeloblastic leukaemia and in three others the drug had to be withdrawn.