Long-term treatment results of Polish pediatric and adolescent patients enrolled in the ALL IC-BFM 2002 trial
Abstrakt
Our study demonstrates a death rate for both induction before CR1 (1.92%) and during the CR1 phase (4.55%). This may result from the long duration of the analysis and a change in the standards of supportive therapy.
The major leading causes of death, similarly to other reports, were sepsis, progressive ALL and SCT-related complications. Infections, both bacterial and fungal, resulted in 24.3% of deaths in our cohort.
In comparison, Möricke et al.5 have reported 69% cases of death as infection-related. The risk of life-threatening infection increased during the induction phase.
The cumulative incidence of relapse in our patients after 5 years for the whole cohort was 15% (SE 0.8), while the individual risk groups showed 8% (SE 1.1) for SR, 16.5% (SE 1.2) for IR, and 25.9% (SE 2.0) for HR. These results are nearly identical with those obtained by the ALL BFM95 study: 16.2% overall (SR-7.8%, SE 1.0; MR-16.8%, SE 1.2, and HR-38.6%, SE 3.6).6 In conclusion, ALL IC-BFM 2002 proved as a highly effective protocol for treatment of children with ALL in Polish pediatric oncohematology centers.
The design of the study allowed us to achieve outcomes comparable to those reported by study groups in several countries with high health-related expenditures. The study based on inexpensive and accessible stratification criteria was highly successful.
