Molecular and cytogenetic findings in pediatric patients diagnosed with acute lymphoid leukemia: A single center study

Abstract

Introduction: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most frequent malignant neoplasm in childhood; Noting its molecular and cytogenetic alterations allows to establish the risk, the associated prognosis and also to propose appropriate therapeutic schemes; The objective of this study is to know the prevalence of these alterations in our population.

Methods:- Retrospective and cross-sectional study, based on the records of molecular and cytogenetic alterations of pediatric patients diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia during the period from January 2014 to December 2018, at the National Oncological Institute Hospital “Dr. Juan Tanca Marengo”.

Results: 338 patients were included, of which the main age group was made up of 0 to 4 years; the most observed immunophenotype was B-common. In 24.56% of the cases, structural alterations were detected, mainly by molecular biology studies; the most common being the t (12; 21) translocation. Cytogenetics results were obtained in 167 patients, in which the main numerical alteration corresponded to hyperdiploidy of between 47 and 51 chromosomes.

Conclusions: Advances in the molecular and cytogenetic characterization of ALL make it possible to improve the stratification of its risk; and establish therapeutic strategies that achieve an improvement in survival.