İnci Yaman BAJİN, Selin AYTAÇ, Barış KUŞKONMAZ, Duygu Uçkan ÇETİNKAYA, Şule ÜNAL, Fatma GÜMRÜK, Mualla ÇETİN

Infant lymphoblastic leukemia: a single centers 10 year experience

Infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a rare disease and consists of4-5% of all childhood ALL. Despite improved survival rates in childhood ALL,infants with ALL have a worse prognosis. We aimed to evaluate the clinicalfeatures and treatment outcomes of our patients diagnosed with infant ALLat Hacettepe University, Pediatric Hematology Department between 1 January2008 and 1 January 2018 retrospectively.There were 13 patients with a median age of 7 months. Three of the patientswere triplets born from a spontaneous monozygotic triplet pregnancy. Relapsewere observed in 4 patients. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT)was performed for five patients. Relapse after HSCT was observed in 3 patients.After a median follow-up period of 18 months, 6 patients (45%) (3 after HSCTand 3 who only received chemotherapy) were alive and in remission.Prognosis of infant ALL is poor in that only half of the patients survive. Ourresults suggest that bone marrow transplantation seems to be a good andefficient choice of treatment for selected patients. However, there is still abig issue to decide which patient should undergo transplantation and morestudies are needed to reevaluate the eligibility criteria for HSCT in this groupof patients.

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