Product Description

Cytarabine is an antimetabolic agent, a pyrimidine nucleoside analogue. Its mode of action is due to its rapid conversion into cytosine arabinoside triphosphate, which damages DNA when the cell cycle holds in the S phase (synthesis of DNA). Rapidly dividing cells, which require DNA replication for mitosis, are therefore most affected. Cytosine arabinoside also inhibits both DNA and RNA polymerases and nucleotide reductase enzymes needed for DNA synthesis. Cytarabine is rapidly deaminated in the body into the inactive uracil derivative and therefore is often given by continuous intravenous infusion.

Cytarabine is one of the mainstays of the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemias, together with an anthracycline, and is used for the prophylaxis of meningeal leukaemia, as well as in regimens for consolidation, in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. It has also been investigated in the blast crisis of chronic myeloid leukaemia and the myelodysplasias . It may be used in salvage regimens for Hodgkin's disease, as part of the complex regimens sometimes employed in aggressive intermediate- and high-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, and for meningeal lymphoma.

Cytarabine also possesses antiviral activity, and it has been used for the treatment of generalised herpesvirus infection.