ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC LEUKEMIA (L3) – RELAPSED

Our son, Gokul, (a 17 year old male) in August 2002,
was found to be suffering ALL - L3. He underwent
dialysis, and recovered renal function. He was started
on LMB 89 protocal. He had pre-induction and induction
chemotherapy including intrathecal chemotherapy. At
the end of induction chemotherapy, repeat bone marrow
study was d
one and found to be in remission. Subsequently he's on
maintenance chemotherapy from Jan 23rd, 2003. When he
returned to hospital for the II course of maintenance
chemotherapy, clinically he was stable afebrile and
asymptomatic. When CBC was done, it showed
leucocytosis with raised eosinophil count. Hence
repeat Bone marrow test was done and it showed he had
relapsed. The poor prognosis, due to relapse while on
chemotherapy has been discussed with us. The need for
salvage chemotherapy followed by BMT has been
explained to us, but at the end of the discussion we
decided to take him back home for the time being, as
the statistics of surviving repeat chemotherapy and
BMT presented were bleak. The numbers were not at all
promising and our son was fed up of all the pain and
hospital care. We've sent his fraternal twin's/and
sister's blood for HLA typing and he's now on
palliative chemotherapy for the last month or so.

The family is looking for existing survivors in this
category - L3 type of ALL, teenager survivor of a
relapse and BMT success, and details of Rx, the
hospital that handled the case and gave the
patient a successful chance of a near normal life
without extreme debility or major organ failure after
a successful BMT or PBSCT.

Please reply if you have any information. Thank you!
Aunty Mani.


[This message has been edited by moderator1 (edited 03-03-2003).]