Defined, serum-free conditions for in vitro culture of primary human T-ALL blasts.

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive hematologic malignancy that affects both children and adults. Optimization of chemotherapy regimens over the last five decades has led to steady improvements in outcome for pediatric patients, who have a long-term survival rate of 80%. For adults, however, the five-year survival rate is only 35–40% and both pediatric and adult patients who suffer relapse have uniformly poor outcomes.1 Further, improvements in outcome will thus require introduction of new approaches and more specific, targeted therapies.