Acute leukemia in children: A review of the current Indian data

• Published in: South Asian Journal of Cancer Vol. 5; no. 3; pp. 155 - 160
• Main Authors: Arora, Ramandeep Singh, Arora, Brijesh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: A-12, 2nd Floor, Sector 2, Noida-201301 UP, India Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Pvt. Ltd 01.07.2016; Wolters Kluwer - Medknow Publications; Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd
• Subjects: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia; acute myeloid leukemia; child; Childhood leukemia; Distribution; Forecasts and trends; India; outcomes; Patient outcomes; Review; Review Article; survival; India; Acute lymphoblastic leukemia; acute myeloid leukemia; outcomes; survival; child; India
• ISSN: 2278-330X; 2278-4306
• DOI: 10.4103/2278-330X.187591

Abstract Acute leukemias are the most common diagnostic group of childhood cancer. This review summarizes the published literature on reported current outcomes of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) from India. Overall survival in ALL ranged from 45% to 81% (commonly >60%) and event-free survival ranged from 41% to 70% (commonly >50%). Outcome data for AML was patchy with varying duration of follow-up, but it can be inferred that 50-80% of treated patients had experienced an event (toxic death, refractory disease or relapse). It is imperative that going forward focus should be on collaborative efforts, which promote treatment of patients on risk-stratified adapted protocols based on local infrastructure, improvement in supportive care and encourage prospective multi-center clinical trials.