Outcome for Adolescent and Young Adults 16–21 years of age (AYA) with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Treated on the Children’ s Cancer Group (CCG) 1961 Study.

AYA Patients 16–21 years of age with ALL are treated on both pediatric and adult ALL protocols. Recent publications have suggested that AYA patients treated on pediatric protocols have a significantly better outcome than those treated on adult protocols. From November 1996 to May 2002, 262 AYA ALL patients were entered on the CCG 1961 protocol. Treatment was based on the following observations from the previous CCG 1882 Protocol (1989–1995). 1) For patients with rapid early response (< = 25% blasts in a day seven bone marrow aspirate-RER), in the context of CCG modified BFM therapy (S-BFM), pre-symptomatic central nervous system therapy with intensive intrathecal (IT) methotrexate (MTX) alone provided equivalent results to standard IT MTX and cranial radiation (CRT). 2) For patients with slow early response (> than 25 blasts on day 7-SER), the augmented BFM (A-BFM) regimen produced a significant improvement in outcome compared to S-BFM. A-BFM featured a significant increase in dose intensity for vincristine (VCR), L-asparaginase (L-ASP), and steroid, the use of intravenous MTX without rescue in conjunction with VCR and L-ASP in interim maintenance (IM), and a second IM and delayed intensification (DI) phase. RER patients on 1961 were randomized to one of four arms; S-BFM, S-BFM with a second standard IM and DI phase, A-BFM with only 1 IM/DI phase, and full A-BFM. SER patients were randomized to A-BFM or A-BFM with Idarubicin/Cytoxan pulses added to the 2 DI phases. One hundred ninety patients had < 50K WBC (73.4%) and 21% had T cell immunophenotype. Seven patients had a t (9/22) and three patients had a t (4/11). Five year EFS for AYA patients treated on CCG 1961 was 68% ± 3.7% and the five-year survival was 77% ± 3.2%. The majority of events were isolated bone marrow relapses. For RER AYA patients, five year EFS for patients treated on the augmented intensity arms (N=87) was 83.2% compared to 60.8% for patients treated on the standard intensity arms (N=76) (P = .10). Within the augmented intensity arms, there was no difference in EFS for patients randomized to one or two DI phases. There was no difference in EFS for the 2 SER treatment arms. 5 year EFS was 78% for the Idarubicin/Cytoxan arm and 74% for the ABFM arm. Five year EFS for AYA patients with < 50K WBC was 73.2% (N=190) versus 54% for AYA patients with > 50K WBC. Unlike younger patients, there was no difference in outcome for males and females. Conclusions: 1) AYA patients with ALL have a 68% 5 year EFS when treated with BFM based chemotherapy. 2) WBC < 50K predicts for a favorable outcome. 3) Early augmented intensity therapy appears to improve outcome for AYA ALL patients showing a rapid response to induction therapy.