# Altretamine

Source: https://onco.cc/drugs/altretamine/  
OnCo record `altretamine` (Treatment). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Altretamine is an oral chemotherapy tablet approved in 1990 as a single agent for ovarian cancer that has persisted or come back after platinum-based treatment, now rarely used.

## Summary

Hexamethylmelamine was studied through the 1970s in ovarian, lung and cervical cancers. The FDA approved it in December 1990 for palliative treatment of persistent or recurrent ovarian cancer after first-line cisplatin or alkylating agent combinations, on response rates of roughly 15 to 20 percent in platinum-refractory disease. Nausea, peripheral neuropathy and mood changes limit dosing, and it is taken in 14- or 21-day cycles. With the arrival of paclitaxel, liposomal doxorubicin, gemcitabine and PARP inhibitors it fell to the end of the ovarian cancer sequence and has been discontinued in several countries.

## Fields

- Kind: Treatment
- Status: established
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Also known as: Hexamethylmelamine; HMM
- Tags: gap-fill; chembl-universe
- Brand: Hexalen
- Modality: Oral alkylating-like cytotoxic
- Mechanism: Metabolised by liver cytochromes to reactive methylol intermediates that form DNA adducts; its exact alkylating chemistry differs from classic nitrogen mustards.
- Approvals: US 1990: Persistent or recurrent ovarian cancer after first-line cisplatin or alkylating agent combinations

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altretamine
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altretamine
- ChEMBL CHEMBL1200740: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/explore/compound/CHEMBL1200740

## Connected records

- cancers: [Ovarian cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/ovarian/)
- technologies: [Cytotoxic chemotherapy](https://onco.cc/technologies/cytotoxic-chemotherapy/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/altretamine.json