Acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children: treatment planning via minimal residual disease assessment.

Background Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of cancer in children and adolescents, accounting for 30% of all cases of malignancy in this age group. The cure rate of ALL is now above 80%. The clinical and biological characteristics of ALL that have been studied to date are of limited use in predicting the individual response. Newly developed methods for the assessment of minimal residual disease (MRD) are more helpful in this regard.