Survival Of Young Infants With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia Increases With New Treatment Protocol

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Main Category: Lymphoma / Leukemia
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Clinical Trials / Drug Trials;  Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 20 Jul 2007 - 0:00 PST

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Infants less than one year old with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia have increased survival with a new treatment protocol, compared to those on conventional regimes, according to a report in this week's medical journal The Lancet.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) in babies under one year of age is rare and biologically different from ALL in older babies and children. Over the last 40 years the cure rate for ALL has improved from 10% to 80%, but not for infants less than twelve months' old, where current event-free survival (EFS) stands at around 17-45%.

Dr. Rob Pieters, Erasmus MC-Sophia Childrens' Hospital, Rotterdam, Netherlands, and team, carried out a study of 482 infants under one year of age - from 22 different countries. The babies were listed in risk-order following their peripheral blood response to a standard ALL 7-day predisone pre-treatment for ALL. They then received a hybrid treatment regime based on the standard treatment protocol for ALL, which incorporated some elements designed for treatment of AML (acute myeloid leukaemia).

After a three-year follow-up 58% of those who received the hybrid treatment were in complete remission, and at four years 47% had experienced EFS, compared to 17-45% EFS in previous studies of ALL. The researchers also reported that the hybrid treatment protocol did not produce more toxic effects than previous treatments. "Patients treated with our hybrid protocol, and especially those who responded poorly to prednisone, had higher EFS than most reported outcomes for treatment of infant ALL," said the authors.

"We believe that this hybrid treatment protocol will be used as the standard for continuing international collaborative studies that aim to further improve outcomes for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in infants," the authors concluded.

"New Treatment Protocol Increases Survival Of Very Young Infants With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia"
Dr. Rob Pieters et al
http://www.thelancet.com

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
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