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American Society of Hematology, Blood, 10(108), p. 3302-3304, 2006

DOI: 10.1182/blood-2006-04-016709

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Prognostic significance of CD20 expression in childhood B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Abstract CD20 expression is associated with inferior survival in adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We analyzed the prognostic impact of CD20 expression in 353 children with B-cell precursor ALL treated in 3 consecutive St Jude Total Therapy studies. CD20 expression (> 20%) was found in 169 patients (48%) and was more frequent in patients between 1 and 10 years of age than in those younger than 1 or older than 10 years (P = .001). None of 14 patients with MLL-AF4 expressed CD20. There was no association between CD20 expression and E2A-PBX, TEL-AML1, ploidy, white blood cell count at diagnosis, or sex. In contrast to the experience in adult ALL, our patients with CD20 expression tended to have a better treatment outcome than those without the expression: 5-year event-free survival 84% ± 2.9% versus 78% ± 3.1% (P = .08). These data suggest that CD20 expression is not associated with inferior outcome in pediatric patients treated with contemporary regimens.