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A total of 62 patients with standard-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia received three-drug induction consisting of vincristine, prednisolone, and L-asparaginase (l-Asp) followed by consolidation therapy with intermediate-dose methotrexate (MTX), intrathecal MTX, and 18 Gy of cranial irradiation. Maintenance therapy consisting of 6 drugs including daunorubicin (DNR, 450 mg/m2 in total) was continued for 3 years. Patients were randomized and half of them received weekly l-Asp during maintenance therapy as a late intensification. Complete remission (CR) was achieved in 61/62 (98.4%), and 11 of 61 patients relapsed. At 10 years, the event-free survival (EFS) was 80.6 +/- 5.0% and overall survival was 88.7 +/- 4.0%; median follow-up time was 9.3 years. The 10-year EFS of patients with additional l-Asp (84.8 +/- 6.2%) was superior to that without l-Asp (75.9 +/- 7.9%), although it was not statistically significant. No patients who received a full dose of DNR and maintained CR developed heart failure, although the shortening fraction decreased from 41.0% at diagnosis to 35.2% (median). The protocol AL841 provided good long-term disease control without severe late cardiac dysfunction.

We report a 42-year-old woman with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who received allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) in the first remission from her 75-year-old, HLA-identical, MLC-non-reactive mother. Considering the difficulty to obtain a sufficient number of bone marrow cells from such an old donor, we harvested the cells (2.31 x 10(8)/kg) on day -37 and cryopreserved them until use. BMT was performed on June 3rd, 1993 after conditioning regimen with total body irradiation, high-dose AraC and cyclophosphamide. Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxisis was attempted by cyclosporin A and short-term methtrexate. Her hematopoietic recovery was favorable with no signs and symptoms of GVHD as far as day 218.

We studied the growth of 89 patients who were long-term survivors of childhood leukemia and lymphoma. Eight patients with CNS relapse had a greater decrease in height standard deviation score (SDS) after the relapse than 81 patients without CNS relapse (p less than 0.0001). Two patients who received cranial irradiation when they were younger than 2 years of age demonstrated a marked decrease in height SDS more than 3.0 SD. Five patients appeared to have a decline in height SDS before their CNS relapse. There were no apparent changes in the weight of patients with or without CNS relapse. In endocrine studies, all eight patients with CNS relapse failed to show the normal growth hormone (GH) response to arginine, GH-releasing factor, and glucagon-propranolol tests, while spontaneous GH secretion during sleep was normal. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed small pituitary glands in seven patients with CNS relapse. These findings suggest that in leukemia and lymphoma patients with CNS relapse, GH secretion is impaired at the hypothalamic level, resulting in a secondary atrophy of the pituitary gland. The MRI together with selected endocrinologic tests may help to clarify the mechanism of growth impairment in such patients. A decline in height SDS in each patient may be a useful marker for predicting a CNS relapse in a child with leukemia or lymphoma.

Thirty-six (17.8%) of 202 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 2 (3.7%) of 54 children with acute nonlymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL) had a platelet count over 150 x 10(9)/l at diagnosis. Children with ALL and a platelet count over 150 x 10(9)/l were analysed in detail. The ALL patients without thrombocytopenia tended to be male predominant and had less frequent bleeding manifestations (p less than 0.01). These patients without thrombocytopenia had also significantly less marked leukocytosis (p less than 0.01), less severe anemia (p less than 0.05) and lower percentages of bone marrow blasts (p less than 0.05) than those with thrombocytopenia. In addition, ALL patients without thrombocytopenia had a significantly higher probability of continuous complete remission than those with thrombocytopenia (p less than 0.01).

Twenty children with various hematological malignancies (nine with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, eight with acute non-lymphoblastic leukemia, two with chronic myelogenous leukemia, one with malignant lymphoma and one with 7-monosomy) and four with severe aplastic anemia were treated with allogeneic or syngeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) between September 1977 and September 1988. Eleven patients are surviving currently and ten are disease free 8 to 51 months after BMT. Conditioning regimen consisted of total body irradiation (TBI) and cyclophosphamide in twenty patients. Two patients did not receive TBI. Graft failure was observed in five patients and complete recovery of recipient marrow was seen in two of them. Eleven patients developed acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) with grade I-II in eight patients. Three patients suffered from chronic GvHD. Seven patients with acute leukemia relapsed and all but one died of leukemia. Early death occurred in two undergone BMT in poor clinical conditions. Performance status in 100% in surviving patients except one. Efforts to improve these results are that BMT should be considered early in the course of their disease for patients who are at risk for relapse with conventional chemotherapy and improved conditioning regimens to reduce leukemia relapse after BMT for patient with the second or subsequent remission.