Further studies are needed to determine whether this abnormal methylation capacity plays a role in establishing the abnormal DNA methylation patterns seen in human malignancies.

No abstract

A total of 69 patients of B lineage ALL, 35 children (32 males, 3 females) and 34 young adults (27 males, 7 females) were studied by multiplex RT-PCR to determine the relative frequency of t(9;22), t(12;21), t(1;19), and t(4;11,). Translocation (9;22) was seen in 1/35 (2.8%) and t(1;19) in 2/35 (5.7%) children. None of the children showed t(12;21) and t(4;11) translocations. In young adults, t(9;22) and t(1;19) were seen in 5/34 (14.7%) and 2/34 (5.8%) patients, respectively. None of the latter showed t(12;21) or t(4;11) translocations. Thus, there appears to be a significant under representation of the fusion transcripts for TEL-AML, a good prognostic marker, in this study, unlike in the West, where it is seen in 35% of children with ALL. This, together with the generally increased leukemic burden seen in Indian patients, may explain in part, the poor treatment outcome reported. Am.

This retrospective analysis of 254 children less than 15 years of age treated with MCP-841 protocol from June 1992 to June 2002 was undertaken to identify the pattern of relapse and determine management lacunae. Two hundred twenty-three (87.8%) children achieved a complete remission of whom 40 (17.9%) relapsed. The mean age of relapsed patients was 6.5 years. The male/female ratio was 9:1. There were 23 (57.5%) isolated bone marrow (BM), 7 (17.5%) isolated central nervous system (CNS), 2 (5%) isolated testicular, 5 (12.5%) BM+testes and 1 each of BM+CNS, CNS+testes, and isolated bone relapses. Twenty-seven children (67.5%) relapsed on-therapy whereas 13 (32.5%) relapsed posttherapy. All 9 CNS relapses occurred on-therapy whereas 5/8 (62.5%) of testicular relapses occurred posttherapy. Lymphadenopathy was the only significant predictor for relapse. High-risk features such as age less than 1 year and greater than 10 years (P=0.047) and white cell count greater than 50.0 x 10(9)/L (P=0.044) were significantly more frequent in patients with early on-therapy relapse than in patients with off-therapy relapse. The overall survival in the entire study cohort was 67+/-3.5%. Modest survival outcome, relapse while on chemotherapy and the higher incidence of CNS and testicular relapse indicate the need for reappraisal of our treatment protocol. There is a need of identifying risk factors and high-risk groups in our set of patients and risk-stratified intensification of chemotherapy in them.

All India Institute of Medical Sciences is an Apex Institute and caters more than 1.5 million out-patients and 80,000 in-patients every year. In this study, they have presented interesting results of patients treated with interferon, interferon plus cytarabine and then with imatinib plus cytarabine. They have presented data of 525 patients treated on imatinib alone. Imatinib dose was increased in 56 (10.6%) patients and regain of complete hematological response was seen in 26 patients. A total of 14 patients were transplanted for different indications of chronic myeloid leukemia and out of which 12 patients are doing well, while two died due to Grade IV gut graft-versus-host disease.