Dexamethasone and L-asparaginase therapy prolongs dasatinib-induced remissions and enhances survival of leukemic mice. (A) Kaplan-Meier curves summarizing the overall survival of cohorts of leukemic mice receiving vehicle alone, single agents, or different drug combinations (as indicated in the inset panel). Each treatment arm included 16 mice. Therapies were initiated 10 days after mice received 2 × 105 LICs. The addition of L-asparaginase (L-asp), dexamethasone (Dex), or both to dasatinib (Das) therapy significantly prolonged median survival of recipients (P values in text), and was associated with long-term survival of 13% (n = 2), 31% (n = 5), and 56% (n = 9) of mice in these respective treatment groups. (B-G) Whole-animal luminescent signals (photons/s/cm2/sr) from individual leukemic mice were serially acquired to monitor therapeutic responses and subsequent relapses. In all graphs, signals from individual recipient mice are plotted as solid lines that depict imaging intensity (ordinate) versus time in days after injection of LICs (abscissa). The empirically determined lower limit of sensitivity for whole-animal luminescence is indicated by the dotted horizontal line at the bottom of each graph, and the indicated treatment periods for single or multiple agents are shaded in gray.
