PURPOSE: Treosulfan (L-threitol-1,4-bis-methanesulfonate, Ovastat) is a prodrug of a bifunctional alkylating agent with activity in ovarian carcinoma and other solid tumors. In a pharmacologic study of the bioavailability of treosulfan in a capsule formulation, patients with relapsed ovarian carcinoma were treated with alternating doses of oral and intravenous (i.v.) treosulfan of 1.5 or 2.0 g daily for 5 to 8 days. METHODS: A sensitive method for the determination of treosulfan in plasma and urine by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography had previously been developed. Pharmacokinetic analyses of treosulfan were carried on plasma and urine samples from 20 i.v. courses and 20 courses of oral administration. RESULTS: The bioavailability ratio (f) of oral to i.v. administration was calculated as 0.97 +/- 0.18 (mean +/- SD) using the values AUC oral = 82.1 +/- 39.4 microg/ml h and AUC i.v. = 85.4 +/- 30.3 microg/ml h. The peak plasma concentration cmax (29 +/- 14 microg/ml vs 65 +/- 23 microg/ml) was significantly (P < 0.01) higher after i.v. administration and the tmax after oral administration was 1.5 +/- 0.34 h. The terminal half-life of treosulfan was about 1.8 h. The mean urinary excretion of the parent compound was about 15% of the administered total dose over 24 h (range 6-26%). CONCLUSIONS: The high and relatively constant bioavailability of treosulfan indicates that capsules provide a satisfactory noninvasive treatment alternative. A feasible and reliable oral treosulfan formulation could provide the basis for the development of long-term low-dose outpatient treatment of patients with malignant diseases.

Administration, Oral↗

PubMed1994

Characterization of a human chromosome 4 flow-sorted cosmid library.

A cosmid library has been constructed from a hamster x human hybrid cell line and gridded into 270 microtiter plates containing a total of 25,920 single colonies. Approximately 84% of the recombinants contain human material, with an average length of 29 kb. This library represents a nearly three-fold coverage of human chromosome 4. We investigated this library for presumptive genes, using a set of oligonucleotides detecting SpI and splice-site consensus sequences. The presence of simple repeat motifs was investigated in the cosmids using the oligonucleotides (GGATTT)3, (GGAT)4, (CAC)5, (GCC)5, (AGC)5, (GATA)4, (GACA)4, and (CA)8 as hybridization probes.

Animals↗