Early Response and Outcome in High-Risk Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Childrens Oncology Group Study

The cure rate for childhood ALL has improved considerably in part because therapy is routinely tailored to the predicted risk of relapse. Various clinical and laboratory variables are used in current risk-stratification schemes, but many children who fail therapy lack adverse prognostic factors at initial diagnosis. Using gene expression analysis, we have identified genes and pathways in a NCI high-risk childhood B-precursor ALL cohort at diagnosis that may play a role in early blast regression as correlated with the Day 7 marrow status. We have also identified a 47-probeset signature (representing 41 unique genes) that was predictive of long term outcome in our dataset as well as three large independent datasets of childhood ALL treated on different protocols.

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Bhojwani D, Kang H, Menezes RX, Yang W, Sather H, Moskowitz NP, Min DJ, Potter JW, Harvey R, Hunger SP, Seibel N, Raetz EA, Pieters R, Horstmann MA, Relling MV, den Boer ML, Willman CL, Carroll WL, Children's Oncology Group Study., Dutch Childhood Oncology Group., German Cooperative Study Group for Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.