CNS status and MRD at end of induction stratified by race and ethnicity
Mentor Name: Tamara Miller
This study aims to create a detailed, accurate dataset of children treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta from 2010 through 2025. This dataset includes data on how patients are treated, characteristics of their disease at the time of diagnoses, response to therapy, and development of clinically-relevant side effects experienced during treatment. This includes the presence of leukemia in the central nervous system (CNS) at time of diagnosis and response to therapy, including minimal residual disease (MRD) captured at the end of the first course of therapy, induction. The data on side effects, also called adverse events, includes the presence, grade, and treatment of each adverse event in each chemotherapy course. To create this dataset, chart abstraction will be performed following detailed chart abstraction guides. Chart abstractors will receive training regarding identification of each data element and will perform abstractions on a series of test patients after this training. The test abstractions are compared with a physician-identified gold standard and chart abstractors are required to achieve accuracy before being approved to perform chart abstractions on non-test patients in the cohort. Demographic data will be extracted from the electronic health record. The dataset that will be developed will be used to describe the incidence of toxicities and the grades of each toxicity by chemotherapy course and how development of toxicity is associated with underlying patient, disease, and treatment factors. These data will provide clinicians with detailed information that can be used to guide clinical decisions and discussions with patients and families.
