Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of childhood cancer, and T-ALL represents 20 % of those, with a peak at 2-5 years of age. Although this neoplastic disorder originates from the thymus, it spreads throughout the whole body and is fatal rapidly without therapy.
Current treatments of T-ALL achieve good survival rates of 90% in children but with severe side effects that alter their quality of life in the long term. Furthermore, about 50% of adolescents and 60% of adults succumb to T-ALL. We found that abnormal pre-ALL stem cells are 10 to 20 times more resistant to chemotherapy than other leukemic cells, which could explain why the cancer comes back in some children despite treatment.
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Early T-cell Precursor Acute lymphoblastic leukemia subtype (ETP-ALL) is associated with resistance to chemotherapy and poor prognosis, especially in adults. Stem cell transplantation is beneficial in a large proportion of patients which suggests high potential for immunotherapy for treatment of ETP-ALL.
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