Leukemia outcomes improved in adolescents

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Adolescents with a certain type of leukemia called acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treated on Dana-Farber Cancer Institute treatment protocols have better outcomes than published results from other studies, research suggests.

Leukemia makes up about one quarter of all childhood cancers worldwide and ALL, the most common form of the blood cancer, makes up about 80 percent of all childhood leukemias.

"Historically, adolescents with ALL have had inferior outcomes when compared with younger children," Dr. Elly Barry from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston and colleagues note in their report. The "event-free" survival for teens had ranged from 46 percent to 68 percent.

Barry's team examined the outcomes of 159 adolescents in two consecutive Dana-Farber Cancer Institute protocols between 1991 and 2000, and compared the results with 685 similarly treated younger patients.

Children younger than 10 years had superior 5-year event-free survival (85 percent) than did older children, the results indicate, although event-free survival did not differ between the 10- to 15-year (77 percent) and 15- to 18-year (78 percent) age groups.

The favorable event-free survival rates in these adolescent patients are "superior to published outcomes for similarly aged patients treated on other pediatric and adult ALL regimens," the investigators say.

Overall survival was significantly higher for the age 1-to-10 year group (92 percent) than for those in the 10-to-15-year group (78 percent) or the 15-to-18 year group (81 percent), the researchers note.

"Our findings actually support that adolescents should be treated on 'pediatric-type' leukemia protocols, which are typically more intensive than adult-type protocols," Barry concluded.

SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Oncology, March 1, 2007.