Prognostic factors in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Part II: Multivariate analysis. Children's Cancer and Leukemia Study Group.

The pretreatment characteristics of 158 children with previously untreated acute lymphoblastic leukemia diagnosed April 1972 to June 1978 were analyzed for their ability to predict prognosis. The children were treated according to therapeutic protocols 721, 745 and 765, by members of the Japanese Children's Cancer and Leukemia Study Group. Multivariate analysis was performed to determined the relationship between the characteristics and duration of survival of the patients. The following characteristics were analyzed: initial white blood cell (WBC) count, age at diagnosis, initial hemoglobin level, initial platelet count, sex, organomegaly, and treatment regimen that was provided. By using multivariate techniques, factors were found which the independently and significantly predict the length of survival. These factors were initial WBC count (r0 = 0.2908), age at diagnosis (r0 = 0.2982), and treatment regimen (r0 = 0.2488). Using the major prognostic factors of age at diagnosis and initial WBC count, a formula to predict the survival time was established. According to the initial WBC count and age at diagnosis, we classified all cases of childhood ALL as standard risk and high risk.