RESUMEN
Objective To explore the differences in clinical and laboratory parameters between elderly and non-elderly patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).Poor prognostic factors in elderly patients were explored to guide the individualized treatment.Methods Two hundred and seventy-nine ALL patients were divided into two groups:elderly group with their age more than 60 years (60-79 years) and nonelderly group with their age less than 60 years (14-59 years).The differences in clinical and laboratory parameters,abnormal molecular genetics on related genes,including IKZF1,PAX5,NOTCH1,PHF6,SH2B3,LEF1,and JAK1,as well as the correlations with treatment response and clinical outcome were compared between the two groups.Results Males accounted for a smaller part in elderly group [42.9 ％ (21/49) vs.61.7 ％ (142/230),P =0.015].The percentage of B cell lineage ALL (B-ALL),Philadelphia chromosome positive (Ph+) and CD33 positive rate were higher in elderly group compared with those in non-elderly group [87.8 ％ (43/49) vs.70.4 ％ (162/230),P=0.009;47.8 ％ (22/49) vs.27.4 ％ (58/230),P=0.007;56.8 ％ (21/49) vs.39.0 ％ (64/230),P =0.049,respectively].While both lymphodenopathy and total complete remission (CR) rate gained the upper hand in non-elderly group [38.9 ％ (81/230) vs.20.0 ％ (9/49),P=0.016;91.3 ％ (178/195) vs.68.3 ％ (28/41),P＜ 0.001,respectively].Moreover,elderly group had lower 3-month,6-month,12-month and 24-month overall survival (OS) rates (64.6 ％ vs.84.4 ％,P=0.001;50.0 ％ vs.73.8 ％,P=0.001;29.2 ％ vs.52.4 ％,P=0.003;6.2 ％ vs.26.2 ％,P=0.003,respectively) than those of non-elderly group.No significant differences in mutation rates of PAX5,NOTCH1,PHF6,SH2B3,LEF1 and JAK1 were found (all P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions Compared with non-elderly ALL patients,elderly ones harbor their intrinsic characteristics which might give rise to inferior outcomes.As a consequence,more attention should be poured into treating this particular group of ALL patients to improve their prognosis.