ABSTRACT

Over the last 40 years, a dramatic improvement in the prognosis of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia has been achieved. With current theurapetic regimens for the treatment, complete remission is achieved in more than 95 percent of patients, and 70 to 80 percent of these are long-term, eventfree survivors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the patients treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Gülhane Military Medical Academy, Department of Pediatric Hematology between 1993 and 2000. A retrospective analysis of 34 children, 19 girls (55.8%) and 15 boys (44.2%), with acute lymphoblastic leukemia was performed. The mean age of the patients was 5.8±3.3 (2-14) years. We evaluated the current status of diagnosis, treatment regimens and the disease- free and overall survival rates of our cases. The most frequent signs and symptoms on admission were fatigue (85.3%), hepatomegaly (79.4%), splenomegaly (73.5%) and fever (64.7%). The 35.3%, 26.5% and 38.2% of the patients were in the high risk, medium risk and standart risk groups, respectively. The patients were treated with either BFM 90, POG or BFM 95 regimens. Ten patients (29.4%) relapsed during or after treatment. In conclusion, the five-year disease- free survival rate was 69.6% and our patients achieved a five-year overall survival rate of 73.5% by chemotherapy. Bone marrow relapse with or without central nervous system relapse and the time to achieve the complete remission were the most important factors for disease-free survival rate.