Improved treatment outcome in children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia using ALL-BFM 90 study protocol in the Czech Republic
Abstract
Background. Prognosis of children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) - the most common cancer in childhood, has improved remarkably over the last 40 years.
The authors report the treatment outcome in children with ALL cured according to ALL-BFM 90 Study protocol in the Czech Republic during the first half of nineties. Methods and Results.
Children aged 0-18 years were included into the study in 10 centers between 1990 to 1996. Patients were classified into standard-risk (SR), medium-risk (MR) and high-risk (HR) group according to initial leukaemic burden, early treatment response, and genotype of leukaemia.
Duration of the chemotherapy was two years. Treatment results were evaluated in 352 children.
With a median follow-up of 7.3 years, event-free-survival (EFS) was 71.3 % and overall survival 76.4 %. EFS was 80.3 %, 74 % and 28.2 % in SR, MR and HR group, respectively.
Relapse was diagnosed in 17.8 % of the patients. Conclusions.
The treatment outcome of children with ALL improved significantly (p=0.0045) compared to the previous study ALL-BFM 83 (EFS 62 %). These results are comparable to those achieved by leading leukaemia study groups in the world.