Evaluation of retinyl palmitate and cytarabine treatment in a slowly growing rat leukemia model

The slowly effect of retinyl palmitate in prolonging survival time in a slowly growing rat promyelocytic leukemia model (BNML) was tested. Retinyl palmitate was given in addition to cytarabine, which has previously been shown to prolong survival time in these rats. The effect of cytarabine on liver store and plasma level of retinol was also tested. The results show that retinyl palmitate did not prolong survival time in the leukemic rats. Similarly, cytarabine did not reduce the level of retinol in liver or plasma.