文摘
Relapse period is strongly associated with second relapse risk in relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children. In this context, the treatment outcome of very late relapse should be better; however, data regarding very late relapse is limited. We retrospectively analyzed the outcomes of two consecutive Tokyo Children’s Cancer Study Group (TCCSG) ALL trials (1995-004) with a focus on late relapse, which was divided into two categories: late relapse (6-4?months from the end of therapy, n?=?48) and very late relapse (>24?months from the end of therapy, n?=?57). Forty-three patients (29 late relapse and 14 very late relapse) received allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) at second remission. The event-free survival (EFS) probabilities of late relapse and very late relapse were 54.5?±?7.3 and 64.8?±?6.8?% at 7?years, respectively (P?=?0.36), and were not significantly different. However, the second relapse incidence of late relapse (34.7?±?7.1?%) was higher than that of very late relapse (15.5?±?5.1?%, P?=?0.03). The second relapse risk was low for very late relapse ALL, which suggests that these patients should be treated without allogeneic HSCT.