Brain damage after treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A report on 34 patients with special regard to MRI findings.

In 34 patients treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), central nervous system (CNS) damage was assessed by clinical evaluation and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Twenty-seven of them had been off therapy from 5 to 109 months (median 64 months) while 7 had not completed the maintenance phase of their treatment. All the patients were disease-free when evaluated. None of the 3 patients who showed clinical CNS damage during the follow-up was symptomatic when submitted to MRI, while periventricular hyperintensity in T2-weighted images, suggestive of leukoencephalopathy, was present in 8 of the 34 patients. These subclinical abnormalities appear to be more frequent, transient in nature and treatment-related in patients evaluated shortly after the induction phase. Similar MRI findings seem, on the contrary, to be consequences of the disease on the CNS when appearing in long-term survivors.