Results of Medical Research Council Childhood Leukaemia Trial UKALL VIII (Report to the Medical Research Council on behalf of the Working Party on Leukaemia in Childhood)

Summary During the 1970s, despite apparently similar treatment, the prognosis for children with lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) improved more in some countries, notably the United States and West Germany, than in others. To find out why, the first phase of the United Kingdom (UK) Medical Research Council (MRC) childhood ALL trial, UKALL VIII, was designed to see whether similar results to the United States Children's Cancer Study Group (CCSG) could be obtained in the U.K. using an identical protocol (CCG 162). Protocol 162 was one of a series of regimens devised by the American Children's Cancer Study Group in the 1970s and was used specifically for their average risk patients (all children with ALL with an initial white cell count up to 50 × 109/l except those aged 3–6 years with white cell counts under 10 × 109/l). One arm (1A) of their study was adopted by the MRC for all children in the U.K. aged 0–14 years with confirmed ALL.