Acute lymphoblastic leukemia or ALL is the most common type of cancer in children affecting about one in 30,000 each year. Current drugs for the disease have put the cure rates close to 80 percent. Even so, only 30 percent of children whose cancers return will live for five more years.

 

But things will likely change as American researchers have revealed that changes in a gene called IKAROS can help predict if ALL is going to come back. Knowing this risk would help doctors change treatment plans accordingly and obtain better results.

 

For the study, senior author Dr. James R. Downing, scientific director of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in Memphis, Tenn. and colleagues conducted gene analyses on 221 children with high-risk ALL who were being treated for the disease as part of another study.

 

More than one-quarter of the patients had deletions or changes in the IKAROS gene. The gene produces a protein that is involved in regulating other genes and plays an important role in the development of lymphocytes. These children also had poor outcomes in fighting the disease, the researchers noted.

 

Downing said, “The mutations of IKAROS were shown to be independent prognostic indicators, they had high value to identify patients at high risk of relapse over and above known risk factors. Identification of these lesions at the time of diagnosis would provide new information to better identify those patients.”