Outcome for children and young people with Early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia treated on a contemporary protocol, UKALL 2003

We investigated the outcome for children and young people with Early T-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ETP-ALL), a recently described poor prognosis subgroup of T-ALL, treated on a contemporary protocol, UKALL 2003. After a median follow-up of 4 years and 10 months, the ETP sub-group, representing 16% of T-ALL patients, had non-significantly inferior 5-year event-free survival (76.7% vs. 84.6%, P = 0.2) and overall survival (82.4% vs. 90.9%, P = 0.1), and a higher relapse rate (18.6% vs. 9.6%, P = 0.1) compared to typical T-ALL. ETP-ALL has an intermediate risk outcome, which does not warrant experimental treatment or first remission allogeneic transplant for the group universally.