Risk Groups in Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

When the German multicenter trial for the treatment of adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute undifferentiated leukemia (AUL) was started in 1978, one of the main objectives was to establish prognostic factors for the definition of groups with increased risk of relapse. At that time, on the basis of large cooperative studies of childhood ALL, children could already be classified as being of standard risk or high risk [1]. It was also of interest whether the prognostic factors might differ when a comparable treatment strategy was applied to adults.