Research on the road: Paediatric leukaemia surveillance review heading to CCLG conference

Posted on 16 April 2024

CRD researchers are wrapping up a systematic review about the use of surveillance testing for paediatric acute leukaemia relapse and presenting a first-look at findings this month at the Children's Cancer and Leukaemia Group’s (CCLG) annual meeting.

Acute leukaemias are the most common childhood cancers. After treatment, patients are followed-up to assess for relapse and late effects of interventions. This systematic review aimed to establish the impact of routine surveillance testing for relapse within this population.

Within this project, we also performed a survey of current UK practice. We found there’s no standardised approach, with institutions’ approaches ranging from no surveillance to intensive testing schedules. As there are risks associated with testing as well as possibly missing early signs of relapse, not to mention stress placed on patients and families as well as NHS services, this is an important piece of research.

Early findings show a poorly reported evidence base, with widely varying populations and outcome measures making statistical synthesis infeasible. Surveillance testing programmes described within the included studies also varied on duration, frequency and type of test used. Currently, available evidence suggests that off-treatment surveillance testing for children and young people under 18 years with acute leukaemia is not helpful in improving survival. However, future research which uses longitudinal, prospective comparative designs with a focus on key outcomes and high quality reporting would help inform this conclusion.

The CRD research team is led by Jessica E Morgan and includes Connor Evans, Hollie Melton, Yiwen Liu, and Helen Fulbright along with Rebecca E Ling from the Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford. The research is funded by CCLG and will be presented at their annual conference, 22-23 April 2024.