Activity of 9-10 anthracenedicarboxaldehyde bis[(4,5-dihydro-1 H-imidazol-2-yl)hydrazone]dihydrochloride (CL216,942) in a human tumor cloning system. Leads for phase II trials in man.

We have utilized a recently developed human tumor cloning system to screen for antitumor effects in vitro of a new anthracene derivative, CL216,942. The object was to determine whether the system is useful for pinpointing the types of tumors in patients which should be studied in early phase II clinical trials. Tumors from 684 patients were placed in culture (27 different histologic tumor types). Two hundred seventy-three tumors both grew and formed enough colonies for drug sensitivity assays. In vitro antitumor activity was noted for CL216,942 against human breast cancer, ovarian cancer, renal cancer, squamous cell, small cell and large cell lung cancer, lymphoma, acute myelogenous leukemia, melanoma, adenocarcinoma of unknown origin, adrenal cancer, gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer, and head and neck cancer. The drug definitely showed no in vitro activity against colon cancer. These data indicate that CL216,942 has a wide spectrum of in vitro antitumor activity. A comparison of these in vitro results with the results of phase II clinical trials with the drug should allow an evaluation of the utility of the human cloning system for predicting clinical activity of a new compound.