Long-term follow-up of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in young children treated by the SCMC-ALL-2009 protocol

Abstract

This study evaluated the long-term therapeutic effect and prognostic factors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in 100 young Chinese children (<2 years old) who were enrolled in the Shanghai Children's Medical Center (SCMC)-ALL-2009 study in five pediatric hematological disease centers based on collaboration. The 5-year and 10-year event-free survivals (EFS) were 74.7 ± 3.2% and 73.3 ± 3.4%. The 10-year EFS rates for low risk, intermediate-risk, and high-risk patients were 81.9 ± 5.0%, 71.3 ± 4.3%, and 22.2 ± 13.9%, respectively. Relapse occurred in 19 patients. MRD results on day 55, good or poor response to prednisolone, and age at diagnosis were shown to have important prognostic and therapeutic implications. Compared with the SCMC-ALL-2005 protocol, showed that the 10-year-EFS and 10-year-overall survival of the SCMC-ALL-2009 protocol were better than that of the −2005 protocol. Notably, the intermediate-risk group was improved after the chemotherapy intensity was strengthened.

Keywords:

• Acute lymphoblastic leukemia
• young age
• SCMC-ALL-2009
• outcome
• risk factors

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author contributions

Liu Kangkang and Wang Ningling designed the study; Liu Kangkang, Chu Jinhua, Dai Yu, Jiang Aoshuang, Yang Linhai, Xie Zhiwei, Zhang Kunlong, Tu Songji, Cai Huaju, Wu Zhengyu, and Wang Ningling performed the research; Liu Kangkang and Jiang Aoshuang analyzed the data; Liu Kangkang wrote the paper; Wang Ningling revised the manuscript.

Table 1. Characteristics, response to treatment, and prognostic variables of patients treated using the SCMC-ALL-2009 protocol and EFS.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by Scientific Research Foundation of Anhui Medical University [2017xkj035] and the Grants for Scientific Research of the Second Hospital of Anhui Medical University [2015hhjh09].