Nadeem Ikram, Khalid Hassan, Musarrat Ramzan, Samina Tufail, Khalid Bukhari.
Leukemias in children.
J Pak Inst Med Sci Jan ;14(1):728-34.

Pattern of 160 cases of leukaemias in children (<15 years of age) is presented. Acute leukaemias (92.5%) were more common than chronic (7.5%), with an acute to chronic leukaemia ratio of 9.75:1. Amongst acute leukaemias, acute lymphoblastic leukaemias (ALL) were more frequent as compared to acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), with ALL: AML ratio of 3.7:1. In ALL patients, L1 (68.41%) was the commonest, followed by L2 (22.2%) and L3 (5.1%), respectively. Amongst AML, M2 (29.03%) was the commonest followed by M3 (22.58%), M1 (12.9), M4 (9.6%) and M5 (9.6%), respectively. Fever, progressive pallor and bleeding manifestations were common presenting features in all types of leukaemias. Body aches and lymphadenopathy were more pronounced in ALL, whereas bleeding manifestations were more conspicuous in AML. Amongst the known favourable prognostic indicators of ALL, FAB types L1, age between 2 & 10 years and absence of organomegaly were observed in majority of ALL patients. Likewise, amongst AML cases, FAB types M2, M3 & M4, age range of 2-15 years and absence of extramedullary disease were observed in majority of patients as the known favourable indicators. The need is there to evaluate the utility of different prognostic indicators in predicting the disease course and in making decisions regarding management.

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