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Study Provides Insight to Improved Diagnosis and Treatment for Childhood Leukemia |
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A
multi-institutional study
involving 1,880 children with leukemia shows
that despite intensive
chemotherapy a significant subset of children
continue to die from Acute
Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). "The insights
gained from this study will help
us in our mission to develop patient tailored
therapies and achieve a 100%
cure rate for childhood leukemia," said Dr.
Uckun, director, Hughes Institute.
ALL is the most common form of childhood cancer. Current intensive therapies for childhood ALL are expected to result in a survival rate of greater than 75%. Therefore, the present challenge in treating leukemia is to improve the ability to identify and treat those patients who fail current intensive therapies. Upfront identification of these patients is of great importance so that alternative treatment strategies such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors and immunotoxins with or without bone marrow transplantation can be employed early in their course to prevent leukemia-related deaths. Nyla Heerema, director, department of genetics, chairperson of the CCG cytogenetics committee, and lead author of the paper stated that this study emphasizes the importance of the application of cytogenetics in diagnosis and treatment of leukemia. This study was conducted by Drs. Heerema and Uckun in collaboration with other scientists from more than 100 institutions throughout the United States, including the University of Chicago, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Children's Hospitals and Clinics, Minneapolis, and Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The results are published in this week's issue of Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology. Reference: Heerema NA, Nachman JB, Sather HN, Sensel MG, Lee MK, Hutchinson R, Lange BJ, Steinherz PG, Bostron B, Gaynon PS, Uckun FM. Hypodiploidy with less than 45 chromosomes confers adverse risk in childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A report from the Children's Cancer Group. Blood, 94(12):4036-4046, 1999. The Hughes Institute (http://www.hughesinstitute.org), located in Roseville, Minn., is a non-profit research organization dedicated to combating cancer, AIDS, and diseases of the immune system. Dec. 22, 1999 |
