Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in children and a major cause of death from disease in this age group. Despite the possibility of a cure, ALL treatments can lead to significant health problems later on. Early detection and understanding of ALL could greatly reduce the impact of cancer in children. Many genetic factors have been identified that increase the risk of developing a specific type of ALL called B-cell ALL, but how these factors contribute to the disease is still not fully understood.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the second most common childhood leukemia but is reaching acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) as the leading cause of childhood leukemic mortality, primarily because of ineffective prognostic schemas and the absence of targeted therapies. While there have been significant advancements in supportive care and targeted treatments, AML shows a worse long-term prognosis across all groups when compared to other acute leukemias.

Mentor Name: Kristen Long

Alkylating agents are a class of chemotherapeutics important for children with high-risk or relapsed leukemias. These are given during what we call conditioning regimens just before bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The goal of conditioning regimens is to eliminate all leukemia cells, before the bone marrow is replaced by BMT. However, the failure of these conditioning regimens to ablate all leukemia cells is a major problem that leads to relapse after BMT. Leukemic relapse is the most common cause of treatment failure of BMT regimens, and these patients have a very poor prognosis.