Promising new strategy for treating children with acute lymphocytic leukaemia

Dr Raetz talks to ecancertv about results from a Children's Oncology Group study that looked at using a real-time disease classification protocol based on clinical, biologic and early disease response measures for childhood B-lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

The study involved over 10,000 children of whom around 5,000 met National Cancer Institute criteria for standard risk ALL and 2,700 were deemed high risk at the end of induction therapy. A large subset of children was identified who had favourable cytogenetic profiles and rapid responses to treatment resulting in high overall survival at 5 years. This suggests that there could be some children who would not benefit from further chemotherapy intensification.