Diagnosis and Management of Pediatric Leukemia

Dear Colleagues,

The focus of this Special issue is on the current advances in diagnostics and management of pediatric leukemia, which is the most common cancer in children and teens.

Leukemia is a very heterogeneous disease; the main types of leukemia are divided according to whether the leukemia is acute (fast-growing) or chronic (slow growing), and whether it starts in myeloid or lymphoid progenitor cells. Despite this classification, many narrower forms of the disease are distinguished, which differ significantly in treatment options and clinical outcomes. There are well-known diagnostic markers that are used to stratify patients and select a treatment protocol, but many of the precise molecular mechanisms underlying the different forms of the disease need to be identified. Thus, the search for new diagnostic and prognostic markers using high-throughput genotyping and omics data integration technologies becomes a key direction in developing effective treatments and improving patient management.

In addition, hereditary predisposition to leukemia is of special importance. A better understanding of leukemogenesis and recognition of germline genetic changes could provide new tools for treating patients carrying pathogenic germline variants. Another important problem is the high toxicity of standard leukemia treatment strategies, which cause adverse events such as neurotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, gastrointestinal complications, secondary malignancies, and so on. The definition of prognostic markers of toxic effects will enable prevention and effective rehabilitation, which will undoubtedly improve patient survival. 

In this Special Issue, we invite submissions of reviews and original articles in the field of pediatric leukemia research. Particular attention will be paid to manuscripts describing new molecular targets for specialized therapies that will lead to improved outcomes in childhood leukemia and new molecular markers and methods for monitoring minimal residual disease and assessing treatment response and risk of relapse, as well as individualizing treatment in the case of inherited syndromes or severe toxicity and complications.

We look forward to your valuable contributions to this Issue.

Prof. Dr. Tatiana Nasedkina
Guest Editor

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