Dexamethasone-specific apoptosis in vitro inversely correlates with percentages of blast cells in BM on day 15 of initial therapy in childhood T-ALL.

Primary T-ALL cells were incubated in the presence of dexamethasone (2 μM) for 24 hours at 37°C and the extent of drug-specific apoptosis was evaluated as described in “Patients, materials, and methods.” Spearman analysis: r_s = −0.46, P = .001. Trend line was calculated using linear regression statistics.