Treatment and follow-up
Compared to non-Aboriginal children, Aboriginal children were less likely to be enrolled on clinical trials (34.5% vs. 53.1%, p=0.03) and were more likely to be lost to follow-up (41.4% vs. 13.2%, p<0.001) (Table 2). There was no evidence of a difference in loss to follow-up by area-based SES (p=0.95); however, around a third (31.2%) of children from remote and very remote localities were lost to follow-up compared to 12.8% from major cities (p=0.009) (Table 2).
All Aboriginal patients with ALL had low MRD-based response compared to 78.8% of non-Aboriginal patients (n=16/16 vs. n=241/306, p=0.041), however these numbers were small (Table 1).