Description
The cure rate for childhood ALL has improved considerably in part because therapy is routinely tailored to the predicted risk of relapse. Various clinical and laboratory variables are used in current risk-stratification schemes, but many children who fail therapy lack adverse prognostic factors at initial diagnosis. Using gene expression analysis, we have identified genes and pathways in a NCI high-risk childhood B-precursor ALL cohort at diagnosis that may play a role in early blast regression as correlated with the Day 7 marrow status. We have also identified a 47-probeset signature (representing 41 unique genes) that was predictive of long term outcome in our dataset as well as three large independent datasets of childhood ALL treated on different protocols.