Intrathecal cytarabine
Published: Nov 2025
Next review: Nov 2028
Cytarabine (also known as Ara C) is a chemotherapy medicine used to treat many different types of cancer. This information is about the use of cytarabine in children and young people with cancer when it is given into the fluid around the spinal cord during a lumbar puncture (intrathecal injection).
Please read this guide carefully alongside any patient information provided by the manufacturer. Keep it somewhere safe so you can read it again. For most medicines, information is provided by the manufacturer in the medicine package. However, this does not always tell you everything you need to know about the use of this medicine in children and young people. We have written this factsheet to give you some extra information.
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How this resource was made
This factsheet was written by Tasneem Khalid, Senior Oncology Pharmacist, The Christie, Manchester and reviewed by Rachel Greer, Paediatric Oncology Pharmacist, Leeds Children’s Hospital and the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacists Group (NPPG) Paediatric Oncology Pharmacists Steering Committee on behalf of the CCLG Information Advisory Group, comprising parents, survivors and multiprofessional experts in the field of children and young people’s cancer.
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