Eleven infants with acute leukemia were studied for immunpohenotype and cytogenetic characteristics. Immunological study was performed in 9 patients . The majority (78%) of infants had common acute lymphoblastic leukemia antigen (CALLA)-negative blasts , which were considered near stem cells. The chromosome study was performed in 11 patients : 8 patients showed clonal chromosome aberrations, 6 patients (75%) had translocations , including 11q23 (3 cases), which are related to poor prognosis in

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... hildhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia . They had a significant poor prognosis : the median duration of survival was only 5 months. On the other hand, the patients having a low titer of LDH and a normal karyotype had a better prognosis . Our data show that the cytogenetic abnormalities and the absence of CALLA are related to poor prognosis .