Additional chemotherapy may a better option than bone marrow transplant for some children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who don’t respond to an initial intense regimen of chemotherapy called “induction therapy,” a new study says.Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. According to study co-author Dr. Ching-Hon Pui, failure to improve after induction therapy is rare, happening in just 2 percent to 3 percent of children with ALL. But when it does happen, these children’s risk for a bad outcome rises considerably, so they often then become candidates for a bone marrow transplant.
