{"entity":{"id":"altretamine","kind":"drug","name":"Altretamine","aka":["Hexamethylmelamine","HMM"],"tldr":"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.","status":"established","asOf":"2026-09-08","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altretamine","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altretamine"},{"label":"ChEMBL CHEMBL1200740","url":"https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/explore/compound/CHEMBL1200740"}],"tags":["gap-fill","chembl-universe"],"related":[],"cancers":["ovarian"],"sections":[],"technologies":["cytotoxic-chemotherapy"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"notes":[],"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":[{"region":"US","year":1990,"indication":"Persistent or recurrent ovarian cancer after first-line cisplatin or alkylating agent combinations"}],"mechanismSteps":[],"toxicity":[],"access":[],"regulatoryEvents":[]},"route":"/drugs/altretamine/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"ovarian","kind":"cancer","name":"Ovarian cancer","route":"/cancers/ovarian/"}],"technology":[{"id":"cytotoxic-chemotherapy","kind":"technology","name":"Cytotoxic chemotherapy","route":"/technologies/cytotoxic-chemotherapy/"}]}}