Vion Pharmaceuticals Announces Presentation of Data of Cloretazine(R) (VNP40101M) in Elderly Patients with High-Risk Myelodysplastic Syndromes at the EHA Annu...( NEW HAVEN Conn. June 13 /- VIONPH...),Health

NEW HAVEN, Conn., June 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VION PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. (Nasdaq: VION) today announced that data from a previously conducted Phase II trial of its lead anticancer agent Cloretazine(R) (VNP40101M) in elderly patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) had been presented at the 13th Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. At the Congress, data were presented in a subset of 26 patients with high-risk MDS by French-American-British (FAB) Group criteria.

The median age of the patients in the subset was 71 years (range of 59-82 years). Twelve patients were diagnosed with refractory anemia with excess blasts (RAEB) and 9 patients were diagnosed with RAEB-t. Five patients were diagnosed with either chronic myelomonocytic leukemias (CMML) (3) or as unknown (2). Fifteen patients had intermediate cytogenetics and 11 had unfavorable cytogenetics. Sixteen of the patients were classified as Intermediate-2 risk by the International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS) system (1.5-2.0), and 10 were classified as high risk (greater than or equal to 2.5).

Eight of the 26 patients had received prior treatment for their disease. Prior agents used included arsenic trioxide, thalidomide, Ara-C, imatinib mesylate, interferon, amifostine, melphalan, hydroxyurea and 5-azacitiadine.

The overall complete response rate was 38% (7 CR and 3 CRp). Three of 10 responders received prior treatment; 8 of the 10 responders received consolidation. The median (range) of overall survival for the entire patient group was 3.4 months (0.6-28.6) and the median (range) of overall survival for responders was 3.9 months (2.5-28.6).

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