BACKGROUND The t(9;22) and t(4;11) chromosomal translocations, which generate the BCR-ABL and MLL-AF4 fusion genes, define high-risk subtypes of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in adults. However, the prognostic impact of other rarer fusion genes is less well established in adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia than in the childhood form. DESIGN AND METHODS In the context of the German Multicenter ...

BACKGROUND The translocation t(1;19)(q23;p13), which results in the TCF3-PBX1 chimeric gene, is one of the most frequent rearrangements observed in B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It appears in both adult and pediatric patients with B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia at an overall frequency of 3 to 5%. Most cases of pre-B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia carrying the translocation t(1;19...

Objective: To describe certain characteristics of acute leukemia regarding age, gender, cytomorphology and immunophenotype at King Hussein Medical Center. Methods: A retrospective review of bone marrow aspirate and/or biopsy reports was conducted at Princess Iman Research and Laboratory Sciences Center at King Hussein Medical Center during the period between Jan 2004 and Dec 2008. A total of 22...

BACKGROUND Advances in the treatment of childhood hematologic malignancies have led to improvements in survival for several of these conditions during the past few decades, but most population-based survival data available to date refer only to patients diagnosed up to the mid-1990s. METHODS We used period analysis to assess trends in 5- and 10-year survival in US patients younger than 15 yea...

BACKGROUND Despite incremental improvements in outcomes for patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, significant numbers of patients still die from this disease. Mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors have shown potential in vitro and in vivo as therapeutic agents against a range of tumors including acute lymphoblastic leukemia. DESIGN AND METHODS Flow cytometry was used to evaluate drug...

BACKGROUND Treatment response has become one of the most important prognostic factors in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We evaluated the significance of the complete clearance of peripheral leukemic blasts on survival in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. DESIGN AND METHODS Seven hundred and fifty-four children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, consecutively enrol...

Extramedullary recurrences with or without bone marrow involvement are reported in up to a half of leukemic relapses after bone marrow transplantation. Extramedullary relapse of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in the kidney after allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) is rare. We herein, report an additional case with extramedullary recurrences and renal relapse after first-allograf...

Deregulation of the Ras/Raf/MEK/extracellular signal-regulated kinase pathway is a common event in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia and is caused by point mutation, gene deletion, and chromosomal translocation of a vast array of gene types, highlighting its importance in leukemia biology. Pathway activation can be therapeutically exploited and may guide new therapies needed for relapsed a...

BACKGROUND The hierarchical organization of hematopoiesis with unidirectional lineage determination has become a questionable tenet in view of the experimental evidence of reprogramming and transdifferentiation of lineage-determined cells. Clinical examples of hematopoietic lineage plasticity are rare. Here we report on a patient who presented with an acute B-lymphoblastic leukemia and develope...

Blast cells were obtained from 17 patients with acute undifferentiated leukemia and 13 patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia in blast crisis. The blasts were tested with anti-i serum in cytotoxicity tests and with antisera to myeloblastic leukemia-associated antigens in immunofluorescence tests. The terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TDT) content of the blasts was also measured. Lympho...