Flavone acetic acid (FAA) with recombinant interleukin-2 (rIL-2) in advanced malignant melanoma. IV: Pharmacokinetics and toxicity of flavone acetic acid and its metabolites

Flavone acetic acid (FAA) was administered at a dose of 4.8 g m-2 over 1 h to patients with advanced malignant disease in combination with Interleukin II. A new high performance liquid chromatography method is described to determine both the parent compound and eight drug-related products, and the conditions required to determine these components in plasma are discussed. The half-life over the first 8 h was 2.3 h, but the terminal clearance of the drug was extremely slow. Severe (WHO Grade 4) hypotension was observed in some patients. However, incidence of this did not appear to be associated with any differences in FAA plasma concentrations, nor were there differences in FAA clearance between those patients whose tumour responded to the drug combination and those who did not.