Daunorubicin, also known as daunomycin, is a chemotherapy medication used to treat cancer.[ Specifically it is used for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and Kaposi's sarcoma.][ It is administered by intravenous.][ A liposomal formulation known as liposomal daunorubicin also exists.][
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Common side effects include hair loss, vomiting, bone marrow suppression, and inflammation of the inside of the mouth.[ Other severe side effects include heart disease and necrosis at the site of injection.][ Use in pregnancy may harm the fetus.][
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Daunorubicin was approved for medical use in the United States in 1979.[ It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.]
Medical uses
It slows or stops the growth of cancer cells in the body. Treatment is usually performed together with other chemotherapy drugs (such as cytarabine), and its administration depends on the type of tumor and the degree of response.
In addition to its major use in treating acute myeloid leukemia, daunorubicin is also used to treat neuroblastoma. Daunorubicin has been used with other chemotherapy agents to treat the blastic phase of chronic myelogenous leukemia.
Daunorubicin is also used as the starting material for semi-synthetic manufacturing of doxorubicin, epirubicin and idarubicin.
Mechanism of action
Similar to doxorubicin, daunorubicin interacts with DNA by intercalation and inhibition of macromolecular biosynthesis.
History
In the 1950s, an Italy research company, Farmitalia Research Laboratories, began an organized effort to isolate anticancer compounds from soil-based . A soil sample was isolated from the area surrounding the Castel del Monte, a 13th-century castle in Apulia. A new strain of Streptomyces peucetius which produced a red pigment was isolated, and an antibiotic was produced from this bacterium that was found to have good activity against Murinae tumors. Since a group of France researchers discovered the same compound at about the same time, the two teams named the compound daunorubicin, combining the name Dauni, a pre-Roman tribe that occupied the area of Italy where the compound was isolated, with the French word for ruby, rubis, describing the color.
However, by 1967, it was recognized that daunorubicin could produce fatal cardiac toxicity.
In 2015–16, a team at Ohio State University "showed that, by carefully manipulating strands of viral DNA, an origami structure with complex folds can be created in just 10 minutes. Incredibly, these structures are only 100 nanometers across – that’s 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Small volumes of daunorubicin can be wrapped up in these minuscule pods, which can then be released into a leukemia cell-filled environment."
Route of administration
Daunorubicin should only be administered in a rapid intravenous infusion. It should not be administered or subcutaneously, since it may cause extensive tissue necrosis.
It should also never be administered (into the spinal canal), as this will cause extensive damage to the nervous system and may lead to death. Daunorubicin has been used intravitreally (inside the eye) for the purposes of preventing proliferative vitreoretinopathy, a common complication following retinal detachment surgery, but has not been found to be effective and is not used for any other ophthalmic purposes at this time.
