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Reduction of Colony-forming Cell Sensitivity to Arabinosylcytosine by Halothane Anesthesia¹

Department of Anesthesia, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois 60611 [D. L. B.], and the Ontario Cancer Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Light anesthesia for 24 hr with either halothane or nitrous oxide significantly reduced the destruction of normal murine hematopoietic stem cells by arabinosylcytosine, as judged by results with the spleen colony-forming unit assay. Neither anesthetic affected the extent of reduction of lymphoma colony-forming units by arabinosylcytosine. Halothane, in combination with vinblastine, similarly protected normal hematopoietic cells but not lymphoma cells. Halothane alone had no significant effect on either normal or lymphoma colony-forming cells, whereas nitrous oxide by itself reduced lymphoma colony-forming cells to 9% of the number found in control mice. Since protection of normal cells was seen with combinations of different anesthetics and different phase-specific chemotherapeutic agents, these results may indicate a general phenomenon whereby anesthetics increase the selectivity of cytotoxic drugs by protecting normal cells against them.

¹ This investigation was supported in part by USPHS. Grant GM 15420-03 and the National Cancer Institute of Canada.

² Supported by USPHS Research Career Development Award 5-K3-GM-35264-03 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Received 11/ 4/69. Accepted 2/19/70.