Abstract
With respect to acute leukemia in childhood, we have encountered up to the present time 7 cases of long-term survivors and 7 cases of poor prognosis. Therefore, we were able to make some clinical observations as well as a comparative study for prognostic fac-tors between the two groups.
All of the 7 long survival cases were ALL and the initial examination of peripheral blood revealed a decrease in leukocyte count in four cases and in the remaining 3 cases a remarkable increase in leukocyte. On the other hand, in the group of poor prognosis, there was no case which indicated a decrease in leukocyte count, but a prominent increase was noted especially in the incomplete remission cases. Although such a prominent increase in leukocyte count was changed to a decrease within a short period of treatment, blast cells continued to exist in the group of poor prognosis while they disappeared in the group of long survivors. It was found that the tendency of anemia was stronger among the long survival cases based on the red blood cell count and there was no clear-cut difference of the platelet count between the two groups.
Hepatosplenomegaly and lymphadenopathy was hardly observed in the group of long survivors and even in those who indicated a remarkable increase in leukocyte, it was only of slight degree. As compared to the above, in the group of poor prognosis, hepatosplenomegaly and lymphadenopathy were observed, especially in those cases in which the remission was incomplete. The only case which was diagnosed as having no possibility of remission was the 12 year old patient who was found to be B cell type ALL. The investigation of HLA typing of the long-term survival group indicated a higher rate of AW 31 as compared with the control group.
