Biol Blood Marrow Transplant. 2007 Sep;13(9):1095-105.

Randomized comparison of four-times-daily versus once-daily intravenous busulfan  in conditioning therapy for hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Ryu SG, Lee JH, Choi SJ, Lee JH, Lee YS, Seol M, Hur EH, Lee SH, Bae KS, Noh GJ, Lee MS, Yun SC, Han SB, Lee KH.

Abstract

Sixty patients were randomized to receive intravenous busulfan (iBU) either as 0.8 mg/kg, over 2 hours 4 times a day (BU4 arm) or 3.2 mg/kg, over 3 hours once a day (BU1 arm) in conditioning therapy for hematopoietic cell transplantation. The complete pharmacokinetic parameters for the first busulfan dose were obtained from all patients and were comparable between the 2 arms: for the BU4 and BU1 groups, elimination half-life (mean+/-SD) was 2.75+/-0.22 versus 2.83+/-0.21 hours, estimated daily AUC was 6058.0+/-1091.9 versus 6475.5+/-1099.4 microM.min per day, and clearance was 2.05+/-0.36versus 1.91+/-0.31 mL/min/kg, respectively. Times to engraftment after transplantation were similar between the 2 arms. No significant differences were evident in the occurrence of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) and hepatic veno-occlusion disease (VOD). Moreover, other toxicities observed within 100 days after transplantation were not significantly different between the 2 arms. The cumulative incidence of nonrelapse mortality was 20.8% in BU4 arm and 13.3% in BU1 arm. In conclusion, our randomized study demonstrates that the pharmacokinetic profiles and posttransplant complications are similar for once-daily iBU and traditional 4-times-daily iBU.