This study was aimed to explore the clinical features and prognosis outcome of childhood T-cell
acute lymphoblastic leukemia (
T-ALL). The clinical data of 38 cases of newly diagnosed
T-ALL from Jan 2005 to Aug 2010 were analyzed retrospectively, and 78 cases of B-ALL with intermediate and high risk were collected as control group, then the sensitive rate of patients to
prednisone pretreatment, complete remission (CR) rate at day 33 after
induction chemotherapy, relapse rate and 3-year event-free survival (EFS) were compared between
T-ALL and B-ALL children. The results showed that no significant statistic difference were found in distribution of age, infiltration of liver, spleen and lymph nodes as well as
central nervous system disease,
chromosome abnormality, expression level of fusion gene and so on between
T-ALL and B-ALL groups (p > 0.05), but there were significant differences in sex and number of cases with WBC count ≥ 50 × 10(9)/L between them (p < 0.05). The sensitive rate of
T-ALL and B-ALL patients to
prednisone pretreatment was 51.9% and 89.3% respectively (p < 0.05). The ratio failed to achieve CR at day 33 after
induction chemotherapy was 15.4% and 8.1% in the two groups (p > 0.05). The relapse rate of
T-ALL and B-ALL cases was 30.8% (8/26) and 14.9% (11/74) respectively (p > 0.05). The time from CR to relapse was (9.78 ± 3.48) month and (21.28 ± 14.32) month (p < 0.05). The 3 year EFS of
T-ALL cases with intermediate and high risk was (37.5 ± 17.1)% and (22.2 ± 9.8)%, while 3 year EFS of B-ALL cases was (66.7 ± 7)% and (51.7 ± 9.3)% respectively (p < 0.05) according to Kaplan-Meier survival curve. It is concluded that as compared with B-ALL cases, the male ratio and initial WBC count are higher, moreover the early response to
prednisone pretreatment and 3 year EFS are poor in
T-ALL cases, the prognosis outcome is poor also.