Acute Leukemia in Adolescents and Adults

Abstract

The incidence and results of treatment of acute leukemia in a total of 386 adolescent and adult patients during the course of 3 consecutive 5-year periods are compared (90 patients, 1948-52 inclusive; 136 patients, 1953-57; 160 patients, 1958-62). The increased incidence in successive periods was more marked above the age of 29 years. Males outnumbered females 213-173. Granulocytic disease occurred in 185 patients, monocytic in 164, and lympho-cytic in 37. Antimetabolites and corticosteroids, alone or in combination, were employed in the treatment of all patients. Although the 50% and the total survival times of the patients treated in 1953-57 were longer than those treated in 1948-52, these gains were not maintained in 1958-62. The fall-off in survival times is not ascribable to the changing age incidence: although younger patients continued to fare better than their elders, this advantage was not as marked in the 1958-62 period. While 2 remarkable patients from the second period survive 11 and 7 1/2 years respectively after their initial diagnoses, we made no progress during the last 5-year period in the treatment of acute leukemia by contemporary methods of therapy.