Detection and Clinical Relevance of BCR-ABL Fusion Gene in Childhood T-lineage Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Report on 4 Cases

The bcr-abl rearrangement has rarely been reported in T-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia and the clinical significance of this translocation is currently unknown. We screened 28 children with T-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia at diagnosis by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction for major and minor break point regions of bcr-abl fusion gene. Four out of 28 patients (14.2%) were bcr-abl positive for the minor breakpoint transcript. One of these patients was refractory to therapy, whereas the other 3 relapsed on therapy.