Treatment of ALL in children is associated with growth deficit during the treatment and several years after it, affecting the final height negatively, particularly in patients younger than 4 and in those who received cranial irradiation.

No abstract

There are conflicting data on the incidence and severity of height deficits in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This is probably due to: (1) collection of data in different phases of treatment; (2) differences in chemotherapeutic regimens; (3) inclusion or not of children who had received cranial irradiation (CRT); (4) limited numbers of patients; (5) relative numbers of prepubertal and pubertal children; (6) different ways of measuring growth deficits. Twenty-five papers published between 1987 and 2006 were reviewed. These reveal that (1) chemotherapy always causes some height reduction during treatment regardless of whether additional CRT is given; (2) catch-up growth occurs immediately after cessation of treatment; (3) intensive chemotherapy alone significantly decreases height in the long-term but to a lesser extent than with additional CRT; (4) young children develop more severe height loss; (5) girls are reported to have greater height deficits but confounding factors have not been adequately considered; (6) late growth hormone (GH) deficiency has been detected in many children, mostly in those who had CRT; (7) GH replacement therapy seems to be effective. ALL relapse in GH-treated children is not more common than in those not treated with GH.

Background: Endocrine complications after acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are common. Methods: Final height, GH/IGF-1 axis, and body mass index were analyzed after 13.7 (7.0–20.7) years from diagnosis in 34 boys aged <12 years at diagnosis and 41 girls <10 years at diagnosis. A modified German BFM-83 ALL protocol included (n = 42) or did not include (n = 33) prophylactic cranial irradiation. In 27 patients, GH after insulin tolerance test, IGF-1, cortisol, free T₄ and estradiol/testosterone were determined. Results: Final height was significantly reduced (mean Z-score for height between final height and diagnosis, ΔHAZ = –0.61, p = 0.0001). At that point, 3 patients were obese (4%) and 17 were overweight (22.7%). Patients aged ≤4 years at diagnosis and those irradiated had a greater loss in final height (p = 0.001 and p = 0.008, respectively). Abnormalities in GH/IGF-1 axis were observed in 4 patients: 3 had a GH peak <6 ng/ml and 1 had a serum IGF-1 concentration <25 ng/ml. Growth deficit was significantly higher in patients with hormonal deficiency (p = 0.006). Conclusions: Treatment of ALL during childhood is associated with final height deficit. Young age at diagnosis and radiotherapy were the major risk factors. GH/IGF-1 deficiency was found particularly in irradiated patients, even though it was detected in 1 non-irradiated patient.