Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is infrequent in Mexican mestizos.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most frequent leukemia in adults living in Western countries, and accounts for approximately 30% of adult leukemias. In a 15-year period in a single institution, we identified 19 patients with CLL in a group of 211 adults with leukemia (9% of adult leukemias). Of these 19 CLL patients, 8 had a Caucasian phenotype, 4 were born outside the country, and only 11 were Mexican mestizos.

Chemotherapy alone may be an efficient alternative in the treatment of early stage Hodgkin's disease if optimal radiotherapy is not available.

Because radiotherapy (RT) equipment technology in some developing countries is outdated, its side effects are more frequent and severe and its efficacy suboptimal, whereas chemotherapy (CT) meeting international standards is generally more consistent. With this in mind, we treated 29 patients with stages I and II Hodgkin's disease with the MOPP or the MOPP/ABV hybrid schedule without prior staging laparotomy. The complete remission rate was 96%: five patients relapsed and of these, two died and three were rescued with CT, in one case followed by an autologous stem cell autograft.

[Results of the treatment of acute leukemia in adolescents].

In the course of 120 months we have prospectively treated 45 patients with acute leukemia aged 11 to 21 years: 33 with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 12 with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Patients with ALL were treated with St. Jude's protocol XI: there were five early deaths and complete remission (CR) was achieved in 76% (89% of those completing one month of treatment); median survival (SV) was 29 months and the 120-month SV was 35%.

Hairy cell leukemia is infrequent in México and has a geographic distribution.

Considering that the prevalence of some hematologic malignancies may have a geographic distribution that could be related with its etiology, a group of 2,387 patients with acute leukemia (1,968 adults and 419 children) was studied along a 5-year period in six different locations within México. Twenty-seven patients (16 males and 11 females) with hairy cell leukemia (HCL) were identified. The adjusted overall proportion of HCL, after excluding data from centers reporting only adults, was 1.

Filgrastim-mobilized peripheral-blood stem cells can be stored at 4 degrees and used in autografts to rescue high-dose chemotherapy.

We studied 21 filgrastim (G-CSF)-mobilized peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) apheresis products obtained from seven patients, and stored at 4 degrees C for periods of up to 96 hr prior to their reinfusion, to rescue high-dose chemotherapy. The apheresis products contained a median of 106 x 10(8)/L mononuclear cells (MNC), 14.6% of them displaying the CD34 antigen; the viability was over 90% in all samples studied at 24, 48, and 72 hr after harvesting.