Childhood translocation 11 leukemia

A new type of childhood leukemia in which a piece of chromosome 11 has been translocated (broken off and attached itself to another chromosome).

Children with this type of leukemia have a particularly poor prognosis (outlook).

They do not respond at all well to the standard therapies for ALL (acute lymphoblastic or lymphocytic leukemia) and often suffer from early relapse after chemotherapy.

Children with chromosome 11 translocation leukemia have gene expression profiles that are different from the profiles of other acute leukemias such as ALL and acute myeloid leukemia.

On both the clinical and laboratory levels, chromosome 11 childhood leukemia appears therefore to be a distinctive disease and not a subset of ALL.

Armstrong and coworkers (Nature, Jan 2002) have called it 'mixed-lineage leukemia.'