Scientists have identified mutations in a gene that predict a high likelihood of relapse in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Although the researchers caution that further research is needed to determine how changes in the gene, called IKZF1 or IKAROS, lead to leukemia relapse, the findings are likely to provide the basis for future diagnostic tests to assess the risk of treatment failure. By using a molecular test to identify this genetic marker in ALL patients, physicians should be better able to assign patients to appropriate therapies.

The findings of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) study, led by scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tenn., the University of New Mexico Cancer Research and Treatment Center, Albuquerque, N.M., and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, appear online Jan.7, 2009, in the New England Journal of Medicine, and in print on Jan. 29, 2009.

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