A spontaneous rat leukemia, free of oncornaviruses, was defined pathologically and shown to be useful as a model system for testing three clinically active drugs. Histologically, the disease is a lymphoblastic leukemia, with virtually all organs densely infiltrated by leukemic cells. Treatment with specific doses of Cytoxan and melphalan resulted in a complete disappearance of the established tumor for a period of time before subsequent recurrence of the leukemia and eventual death of all animals. The use of nonspecific immune stimulators as adjuncts to effective chemotherapy failed to be any more effective, on groups of animals, than treatment with drug alone. The implications of these results to cancer therapy are discussed.

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This work was supported in part by Contract 33391 within the Virus Cancer Program of the National Cancer Institute.

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©1974 American Association for Cancer Research.
1974
Cancer Research, Inc.