Chloramphenicol-a possible role in the treatment of leukaemia?

The effect of chloramphenicol in short term in-vitro bone marrow cultures was studied. There was a striking reduction in the incorporation of tritiated thymidine into DNA in bone marrow cultures with abnormal proliferative properties as compared with normal tissue. A 50% reduction in DNA thymidine incorporation in leukaemia marrow was also obtained with in-vitro chloramphenicol concentrations which in contrast had little or no effect in normal tissue. These in-vitro levels of the antibiotic can be readily achieved in vivo. An in-vivo study confirmed the ability of chloramphenicol to reduce the white cell and blast count in a patient with chronic myeloid leukaemia in blastic transformation.