What Is The Treatment For Acute L. Leukemia?

Posted on Mon, 16 Sep 2013

Question: What is the treatment for ALL? Acute L. Leukemia. Her family doctor believes she has A LL and wants her taken to a oncologist as soon as possible. we are considering taking her to The Mayo Clinic.

Answered by Dr. Pankaj Malhan (38 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Chemotherapy

Detailed Answer:
Hi

Thanks for asking.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a form of leukemia, or cancer of the white blood cells characterized by excess lymphoblasts.
Malignant, immature white blood cells continuously multiply and are overproduced in the bone marrow.

ALL is most common in childhood with a peak incidence at 2–5 years of age, and another peak in old age.Cure is a realistic goal, as ≥94% of children have continuous disease-free survival for five years and appear cured.

Treatment options mostly revolve around the chemotherapy.There are various regimes with multiple drugs given as cycles usually over a period of time. Radiations are some times used for a localized area although its role is very limited in ALL. Similarly surgery as a treatment option is also not viable because of the generalised nature of the disease.

In some cases, immunotherapy or bone marrow transplant is also considered, depending on the case to case to case basis.

Thanks.

Please let me know if you need more information.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar