# Amsacrine

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

## TL;DR

Amsacrine is an intravenous leukaemia drug, approved in Europe, Canada and Australia in the 1980s, used mainly for acute myeloid leukaemia that has relapsed or resisted anthracycline-based treatment.

## Summary

Amsacrine was synthesised in New Zealand by Bruce Cain's group and was the first synthetic DNA-intercalating agent to reach the clinic. It has been approved since the 1980s in several European countries, Canada and Australia for induction and consolidation of relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukaemia, often with cytarabine and etoposide, and appears in some acute lymphoblastic leukaemia salvage protocols. It was never approved in the United States, where it remained investigational. Cardiac arrhythmias in patients with low potassium and the usual marrow suppression are the main hazards.

## Fields

- Kind: Treatment
- Status: established
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Also known as: m-AMSA
- Tags: gap-fill; chembl-universe
- Brand: Amsidine / Amsidyl
- Modality: Acridine topoisomerase II inhibitor, intravenous
- Mechanism: An intercalating acridine that traps topoisomerase II on DNA, producing double-strand breaks in dividing cells.

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsacrine
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsacrine
- ChEMBL CHEMBL1200856: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/explore/compound/CHEMBL1200856

## Connected records

- cancers: [Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia](https://onco.cc/cancers/all-leukemia/), [Acute myeloid leukaemia](https://onco.cc/cancers/aml/)
- technologies: [Cytotoxic chemotherapy](https://onco.cc/technologies/cytotoxic-chemotherapy/)
- targets: [Topoisomerase II alpha (TOP2A)](https://onco.cc/targets/top2a/)
- drugs: [Cytarabine](https://onco.cc/drugs/cytarabine/), [Etoposide](https://onco.cc/drugs/etoposide/)

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