Abstract： Objective To investigate the outcome of high-risk acute non-lymphocytic leukemia treated with sequential low-dose cytarabine and harringtonine(LD-HA) and standard induction. Methods 50 high-risk ANLL. patients (LD-HA group) who were regarded as unfit for intensive chemotherapy were chosen to receive LD-HA. Reinductive treatments with standard regimens would be given for those who did not achieve complete remission. 23 patients DA/HA group given two cycles of standard inductive regimens were taken as the control. Results In LD-HA group 80.0 %. (40/50) reached CR, 2 patients died shortly after inductive therapy. The median leukemia-free survival(LFS) was 19.6 months, and the median overall survival (OS) was 12.2 months. Overall survival was 57.0 % at 1 year, 24.1% at 3 years, and 18.8 % at 5 years. While the CR rate was 73.9 % for DA/HA group, and none died during the inductive therapy. LFS and OS was 19.8 months and 12.1 months, respectively. OS rate was 56.58 % at 1 year, 27.1% at 3 years, and 27.1% at 5 years.There were no difference on OS rates between 2 groups (x2 were 0.009, 0.237 and 1.807, respectively,P ＞0.05). Conclusion In patients who were unfit for intensive chemotherapy, sequential therapy with LD-HA and standard induction improved the rate of complete remission and the duration of survival.