ACUTE-LEUKEMIA IN MIDDLE NORWAY 1984-88

One hundred and eight adult patients with acute leukemia were diagnose d in the middle Norwegian health region during the 5-year period 1984- 88, giving an incidence rate of 4.6/100 000 per year. Nine patients ha d acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), 93 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and 6 patients acute leukemia without definite sub-classification. The median age of AML patients was 66 years. Thirty-five patients (median age 78 years) were found non-suitable for cytotoxic drugs, while 58 A ML patients (median age 57 years) were given aplasia-inducing drug com binations according to one of three treatment programs depending on th e time of diagnosis and age, in order to induce remission. Six patient s were given oral drugs or low dose ara-C. All patients were followed until death or for an observation time of more than 5 years (median 7 years). The overall long term survival was found to be 12/108 for all acute leukemias, 8/93 for AML patients and 4/9 for ALL patients. For t he AML patients given intravenous aplasia-inducing drugs the remission I ate was 0.65, the median remission duration 12.2 months and the 5-y ear survival rate 0.19. For 31 AML patients, (median age 41 years), st arted on an intensive chemotherapy program, the 5-year survival rate w as 0.32 and the relapse-free 5-year survival rate for the 22 patients entering complete remission was also 0.32.