Treatment of acute leukaemia in children

Abstract

As can be seen, there are many problems yet to be solved in the development of optimal therapy for acute leukaemia in children. For patients with ALL we must be able to identify clearly the standard and the varieties of high risk patients. For the patient with standard risk features life expectancy is long and therapy regimens must be designed to provide optimal control of the disease with minimal short and long-term toxicity. For patients with the high risk features of those varieties of ALL associated with poor prognosis methods must be found to circumvent the problem of early acquisition of drug resistance by the leukaemic lymphoblasts. For children with AML the results of remission induction regimens must still be improved to match those obtained in ALL. The major problem awaiting solution, however, is the maintenance of remission once obtained. As disease-free survival in AML is improved then consideration of CNS prophylaxis and the timing of cessation of therapy must be considered.