All issues > Volume 31(7); 1988

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1988;31(7):841-849. Published online July 31, 1988.

A Clinical Observation on the Incidence of Childhood Leukemia.

Hyo Seop Ahn¹, Il Soo Ha¹, Soon Ki Kim¹, Hoan Jong Lee¹, Chang Yee Hong¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

Received: June 9, 1988;  Accepted: June 9, 1988.

Abstract

We have analysed the type, age, sex, initial hematologic values and cell markers in 295 children, who had been diagnosed as leukemia at the department of pediatrics, Seoul National University Hospital, from Jan. 1983 to Dec. 1987. The patients were composed of 197 cases (66.8%) of ALL, 82 cases (27.7%) of ANLL and 16 cases (5.5%) of CML. FAB subclassification have been done in acute leukemia; 76.7%, 19.3% and 1.5% of the ALL patients had FAB LI, L2 and L3 morphology, whereas 12.2%, 35.4%, 7.3%, 14.6%, 13.4%, 7.3% and 9.8% of the ANLL patients have been classified as FAB Ml, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, and M7 respectively. In sixteen CML patients, seven had juvenile, nine had adult type. In ALL, a primary age peak lay before four year and a secondary peak around eleven year, while there was no marked age peak in ANLL. Sex ratio of the patients was 1.3: 1 in acute leukemia and 3: 1 in CML. Compared to ANLL, extreme leukemic leukocytosis was observed more frequently in ALL (p<0.05). Among the 136 cases of ALL, 69.9% were subgrouped as common ALL, 16.9% as T ALL, 11.0% as null ALL, 1.5% as pre-B ALL and 0.7% as B ALL, by expressed cell markers.

Keywords :Childhood leukemia, Incidence, FAB Classification, Immunologic Classification, Hematologic values