Abstract
We have been trying to treat acute leukemic children with BCG-CWS as a nonspecific immunotherapy for preventing hematological relapse occurring after cessation of chemotherapy maintained over two and half years complete remission.
The period of observation was from one month to fifty months (Median duration: 18 months). It has been reported that hematological relapse rates in patients without any treatments after stopping chemotherapy was 16 to 18% and that most of them relapsed within one year after the cessation of chemotherapy. But, we found only one of seventeen patients treated with CWS immunotherapy developed hematological relapse at 18 months (about 6%).
Although our cases are small in number, we would say that administration of CWS immunotherapy following cessation of chemotherapy might prevent hematological relapse. One patient who had not received prophylactic cranial irradiation developed meningeal leukemia and the other one showed ovarian relapse.
From this, CWS immunotherapy seems to prevent hematological relapse, but its effect on the Blood-Brain-Barrier and Blood-Gonad-Barrier is doughtful.
We have to design safer and more effective treatment against these barriers in future.
