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VIDEO: Down syndrome does not affect management of pediatric ALL
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SAN DIEGO — Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and Down syndrome should no longer receive different treatments than children without the genetic disorder – a change in common practice, James L. Ferrara, MD, DSc, Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told HemOnc Today.
In this video, Ferrara discusses study results that were presented at the ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition that demonstrated that low rates of relapse and toxicity-related mortality supported the approach of unified therapy protocols for pediatric patients with ALL who did or did not have Down syndrome.
Uma H. Athale, MD, MSc, of McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, Canada, and colleagues analyzed1,286 children – 38 of whom had Down syndrome – with ALL who underwent treatment with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium protocols between 2000 and 2011.
The results demonstrated complete response rates of 100% among those with Down syndrome and 95% among those without. In addition, the results also revealed slightly higher rates of 5-year OS (97.1% vs. 91%) and 5-year EFS (91% vs. 82%) among children with Down syndrome.
“This study is important [because] it now tells us that children with Down syndrome should not be treated differently than children without Down Syndrome, and in fact, all should be treated in the same way and they will all have excellent outcomes,” Ferrara said.