Amrubicin (

INN Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...

; previously known as SM-5887) is an

anthracycline Anthracyclines are a class of drugs used in cancer chemotherapy that are extracted from ''Streptomyces'' bacterium. These compounds are used to treat many cancers, including leukemias, lymphomas, breast, stomach, uterine, ovarian, bladder canc ...

used in the treatment of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

. It is marketed in Japan since 2002 by Sumitomo under the brand name Calsed. Amrubicin acts by inhibiting

topoisomerase II Type II topoisomerases are topoisomerases that cut both strands of the DNA helix simultaneously in order to manage DNA tangles and supercoils. They use the hydrolysis of ATP, unlike Type I topoisomerase. In this process, these enzymes change th ...

, and has been compared in clinical trials with

topotecan Topotecan, sold under the brand name Hycamtin among others, is a chemotherapeutic agent medication that is a topoisomerase inhibitor. It is a synthetic, water-soluble analog of the natural chemical compound camptothecin. It is used in the form o ...

, a Topoisomerase I inhibitor. It has also been studied for the treatment of bladder carcinoma and gastric cancer. Amrubicin was the first anthracycline derivative created by de novo synthesis and was first published in 1989 by scientists from Sumitomo.Hanada M. Amrubicin, Chapter 6 in Case Studies in Modern Drug Discovery and Development. Eds. Huang X and Aslanian RG. John Wiley & Sons, 2012
P 106
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References

Anthracyclines 3-Hydroxypropenals within hydroxyquinones Diols {{antineoplastic-drug-stub