Objective: To analyse the clinical outcome and the prognostic factor of childhood acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Methods: Disease-free survival (DFS), event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) rates were estimated by Kaplan-Meier method and prognostic factors were evaluated by Cox regression with SPSS in 141 childhood AML in our hospital from August 1995 to July 2004. The patients were divided into 2 groups: acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) as group A and AML other than APL as group B.
Results: Of the 90 group B patients, 54.4% (49/90) achieved complete remission (CR) after one course chemotherapy , with a total CR rate of 76.7%. The cumulative 5 year DFS and OS rate for group B patients were (28.4 +/- 9.0)% and (35.5 +/- 6.3)%, the 51 group A patients were (94.3 +/- 4.0)% and (81.4 +/- 5.7)%, and for total 141 AML patients were (56.9 +/- 6.3)% and (53.3 +/- 4.8)% respectively. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that higher bone marrow blast cell percentage at diagnosis, CR after more than one course of chemotherapy and less than six courses of consolidation chemotherapy were risk prognostic factors in childhood AML other than APL (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: The prognosis of childhood APL is better, while of childhood t(8;21) AML is no better than other FAB subtypes.