Abstract
We studied the clinical and cytogenetic features of 14 acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients with 1; 19 translocation.
Ten patients had poor prognostic factors such as age over 10 years, hyperleukocytosis over 5×104/μl or high serum lactic dehydrogenase levels over 5,000 IU/l. Two patients had relapsed within 12 months after the onset, but their 5-year survival rate was 84.6%. Cytogenetically, 6 of 14 patients had multiple subclones. Two had the clones with hyperdiploidy >50 chromosomes, which was known to be one of the favorable prognostic factors in childhood ALL.
These findings show ALL children with 1; 19 translocation have a more favorable outcome in spite of some high-risk features than hitherto been thought.
