[What have morphology and cytochemistry contributed to the diagnosis and treatment of acute lymphatic leukemia of childhood?].

Correlations between morphological and cytochemical classification and treatment results in 200 children with ALL (diagnosed from 1964 to 1980) resulted in small, insignificant differences: FAB-L2 morphology, and undifferentiated cytochemistry resulted in slightly worse remission or survival duration. A significant difference emerged between the best group (FAB-L2 and PAS-positivity) and the worst (FAB-L2 and undifferentiated cytochemistry). All immunologically examined blasts with strong acid phosphatase positivity showed T-cell markers, but not all those with T-cell markers were phosphatase positive. On the whole, the morphologic/cytochemical classification used here is not satisfactory and has declined significantly in importance due to the much improved treatment results since 1970.