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Cellular cytotoxic drug sensitivity in children with acute leukemia and Down's syndrome: an explanation to differences in clinical outcome?

Leukemia volume 14, pages 943–944 (2000)Cite this article

During the last decade several groups have reported that acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in children with Down's syndrome (DS) has a significantly better outcome than AML in other children.12 In acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), on the other hand, the clinical outcome tends to be worse for DS than for non-DS children.34 The reason for this difference between AML and ALL is not known.

In an ongoing study we prepared leukemic cells at diagnosis from 62 children with AML and 222 children with ALL for test of in vitro sensitivity to cytotoxic drugs. Five children with AML (8%) and five children with ALL (2.3%) also had DS, figures similar to those previously reported in population-based studies, and this enabled us to compare drug sensitivity in tumor cells from DS and non-DS children.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Lions’ Cancer Research Foundation in Uppsala and by the Children's Cancer Foundation in Sweden. The contribution of patient samples from members of the Nordic Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (NOPHO) is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Pediatrics, University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden

    B-M Frost & G Lönnerholm

  2. Childhood Cancer Research Unit, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

    G Gustafsson

  3. Dept of Clinical Pharmacology, University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden

    R Larsson

  4. Dept of Oncology, University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden

    P Nygren

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  1. B-M Frost
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  2. G Gustafsson
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Frost, BM., Gustafsson, G., Larsson, R. et al. Cellular cytotoxic drug sensitivity in children with acute leukemia and Down's syndrome: an explanation to differences in clinical outcome?. Leukemia 14, 943–944 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2401753

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