Purpose: Infants represent a very poor risk group for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We report treatment outcome for such patients treated with intensive therapy on consecutive Children's Cancer Group (CCG) protocols.
Patients and methods: Between 1984 and 1993, infants with newly diagnosed ALL were enrolled onto CCG-107 (n = 99) and CCG-1883 (n = 135) protocols. Postconsolidation therapy was more intensive on CCG-1883. On both studies, prophylactic treatment of the CNS included both high-dose systemic chemotherapy and intrathecal therapy, in contrast to whole-brain radiotherapy, which was used in earlier studies.
Results: Most patients (>95%) achieved remission with induction therapy. The most frequent event was a marrow relapse (46 patients on CCG-107 and 66 patients on CCG- 1883). Four-year event-free survival was 33% (SE = 4.7%) on CCG-107 and 39% (SE = 4.2%) on CCG- 1883. Both studies represent an improvement compared with a 22% (SE = 5.1%) event-free survival for historical controls. Four-year cumulative probabilities of any marrow relapse or an isolated CNS relapse were, respectively, 49% (SE = 5%) and 9% (SE = 3%) on CCG-107 and 50% (SE = 5%) and 3% (SE = 2%) on CCG-1883, compared with 63% (SE = 6%) and 5% (SE = 3%) for the historical controls. Independent adverse prognostic factors were age less than 3 months, WBC count of more than 50,000/microL, CD10 negativity, slow response to induction therapy, and presence of the translocation t(4;11).
Conclusion: Outcome for infants on CCG-107 and CCG- 1883 improved, compared with historical controls. Marrow relapse remains the primary mode of failure. Isolated CNS relapse rates are low, indicating that intrathecal chemotherapy combined with very-high-dose systemic therapy provides adequate protection of the CNS. The overall unsatisfactory outcome observed for the infant ALL population warrants the future use of novel alternative therapies.