Introduction:

Acute leukemia is the most common neoplasm in children, accounting for approximately 25% of all tumors in childhood. In Colombia the cure proportion, around 50%, are lower than reported in developed countries.

Objective:

The main objective is to determine the global and event-free survival of children with diagnosis of lymphoblastic leukemia, all treated with the ACHOP Protocol 2006, from 2007 to 2012. The secondary objectives are to describe mortality, abandonment, relapse and major complications related to treatment.

Material and methods:

A descriptive cohort study of 183 patients under 18 years of age, with a confirmed diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, who were treated at the Foundation of the Misericordia (HOMI) from 2007 to 2012, was performed. The survival dates were obtained by analysis with Kaplan-Meier curves.

Results:

We analyzed overall survival at 2, 3 and 5 years with results of 89%, 87.3% and 74.7 % (95% CI 67 - 80.9) respectively. At 5 years survival for the standard risk group was 78.6 % (95 % CI 68.3-85.1) and 61.9 % (95 % CI 50.7-73) for the high risk group. The event-free survival, considering the abandonment and transfer to another institution as an event, was 56.3 % (95% CI 45.5 - 65.8) at 5 years. Mortality in induction was 3.8 %, mortality related to treatment was 3.4 %, 32 patients (17 %) relapsed, abandonment was 16.4 % and transfers 10.4 %. The main complication of the treatment was infections.

Conclusions:

Overall survival is acceptable for a country with limited resources, the events of abandonment and transfers are very high. Efforts should be made to reduce these situations that worsen the prognosis of the disease.

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