Tucker Arnold Foundation is committed to raise awareness and research funds for a the rare and virulent form of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia that Tucker bravely battled. The t(17;19) genetic translocation is found in less that 1% of all childhood B-cell precursor ALL cases and has a very poor prognosis. There are no published reports of a child surviving this specific malignancy. At the time of diagnosis, Tucker's family donated a bone marrow sample for research purposes to Dr. Chang at Oregon Health Science Univerisity. Donations earmarked for the t(17;19) research fund will go towards supporting Dr. Chang's research, as well as other promising childhood cancer treatments.
Dr. Chang
Patients with t(17;19) acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have a dismal prognosis even with the most intensive current therapies that include stem cell transplant. We present the case of a patient with t(17;19)(q22;p13) gene rearranged B-cell precursor ALL whose lymphoblasts were found to have significant in vitro sensitivity to dasatinib. The patient tolerated the addition of dasatinib with combination therapy and remained in remission for over nine months until his recurrence. Therefore, future studies will be needed to interrogate whether dasatinib has any therapeutic benefit in children with t(17;19) B-cell precursor ALL. Pediatr Blood Cancer © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Dr. Look
Some children and young adults with ALL have a t(17;19) chromosomal translocation that encodes a chimeric transcription factor called E2A-HLF. Our work from the mid 1990’s showed that this fusion protein drives an aberrant cell survival program in these ALL cells that makes them extremely resistant to the combination therapy that is usually given to patients with ALL. To our knowledge, no patients diagnosed with the t(17;19) and expressing E2A-HLF worldwide have been known to emerge as long-term survivors of treatment. A. Thomas Look, MD and Julia Etchin, PhD of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute