Patients characteristics
One hundred patients were included in this study; median age at diagnosis was 9.2-years (range, 0.5-17.8 year); 76% were males; 30 patients (30%) presented with initial WBC count ≥200 × 109/L; the majority of the patients (76%) had high risk disease per NCI classification. CNS involvement was documented in 15 patients (15%). There were no significant differences in the distributions of age, sex, leukocyte count, CNS status at diagnosis and NCI risk between the 2 groups (Table 1).