Vinblastine

Vinblastine Sulfate Injection (vinblastine sulfate) is indicated in the palliative treatment of the following neoplastic diseases: Frequently Responsive Malignancies • Generalized Hodgkin's disease (Stages III and IV, Ann Arbor modification of Rye) • Lymphocytic lymphoma (modular and diffuse, poorly and well differentiated) • Histiocytic lymphoma • Mycosis fungoides (advanced stages) • Advanced carcinoma of the testis • Kaposi's Sarcoma • Letterer-Siwe disease (histiocytosis-X) Less Frequently Responsive Malignancies • Choriocarcinoma resistant to other neoplastic drugs • Cancer of the breast (unresponsive to endocrine surgery and hormonal therapy) The simultaneous use of several cancer chemotherapy drugs is common practice.

Generally, drugs with different dose-limiting clinical toxicities and different mechanisms of action are selected in order to obtain an increase in therapeutic response without added toxicity. Rarely is it possible to obtain equally as good a response with single antineoplastic treatment.

Vinblastine sulfate is a cytotoxic drug that arrests cell growth at the metaphase. Its actions are more pronounced on the rapidly dividing cell than on the normal cell. It appears to act, like vincristine, by binding to the microtubular proteins of the mitotic spindle, preventing polymerisation.

Information available at present suggests that vinblastine sulfate may be useful, either alone or in combination with other oncolytic drugs, for the treatment of: Hodgkin’s disease; non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; carcinoma of the breast; methotrexate-resistant choriocarcinoma; renal cell carcinoma; testicular teratoma and seminoma; histiocytosis X.

Other neoplasms occasionally show a marked response to vinblastine sulfate, but less frequently than the more susceptible conditions listed above.