Department of Medical Oncology & Haematology army hospital (research & referral) New Delhi.
*Correspondence to: LT. COL. H P Singh E-mail: hps62@rediffmial.com
The treatment of children with acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) requires initial induction chemotherapy followed by intensive consolidation chemotherapy. We performed a small pilot study using two such protocols to determine their suitability in our set up.
13 children (median age 4 years) were entered into study. First 4 children received Children's Cancer Group protocol (CCG 2891), subsequent 6 children received BFM 93 (BFM) protocol incorporating high dose cytosine arabino-side & mitoxantrone in consolidation. Of the remaining 3 children, one patient had AML-M3 and received APO protocol. One patient refused for treatment and another child died before treatment could be started. Chemotherapy was given as inpa-tients with standard supportive care.
In the CCG group-all 4 achieved complete remission (CR), one patient died during consolidation of E coli septicemia, two patients refused consolidation. In the BFM protocol : 5 (83.3%) of 6 patients achieved CR and subsequently received consolidation. The estimated 24 months overall survival is 82 ± 1.5%.
This small pilot study suggests the feasibility of using BFM protocol in our set up.
