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Treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
Last update on: 04/09/2009
a remarkable example of the dramatic advances in childhood cancer research
- 1950s: Research succeeded in developing effective therapeutic strategies
- After 1960: Thanks to the implementation of combined treatments, the first reports of long-time survivors came
- 10 years later: Treatment efforts with intensified chemotherapy combined with radiation therapy
- 1980s: Further development of the treatments, e.g. also in the form of stem cell transplantation for high-risk patients
- 1990s: Implementation of modern methods in molecular biology such as the assessment of the MRD (minimal residual disease).
The five-year survival rate of ALL is about 90%.
„ Childhood leukemia was the first example of a form of cancer (adult or paediatric ) against which research developed a really successful treatment, based on the principle of new combination treatments. This big success spurred optimism for more research.”
Prof. Stephan Ladisch
Director of the Center for Cancer and Transplantation Biology at the Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, USA
Vice Chairman of the Univ.Dept. of Paediatric s and
Scientific advisor to the St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute
Statements of paediatric oncologists recorded during our press conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the St. Anna Kinderkrebsforschung (Children’s Cancer Research Institute) are maintained in our material repository and of course free for use.
