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).