Growth Pattern in Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Survivors

Introduction: Childhood cancer survivors though being cured of cancer suffer from late effects especially growth impairment.This study aims to identify the growth pattern in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia(ALL). Methodology:This was a retrospective study done in survivors of ALL who visited the survivor clinic at a tertiary care center in South India.Anthropometric details including age, weight, height, body mass index (BMI) were extracted from case records at 3 time points (at diagnosis(T1), treatment completion(T2) and 2 years post treatment(T3).Weight for age, height for age and BMI were interpreted using IAP growth charts corrected to age and gender.Results: A total of 85 children over 6 months were enrolled.Among them, 42 children had received radiation as part of management.Of the cohort, 55% were male.Median age at diagnosis was 6 years.In the study, the proportion of underweight and stunted were 24% and 22% at T1, 18% and 29% at T2 and 7% and 15% at T3 respectively.At T3, it was found that 70.6% and 62.4 % of survivors had height for age (P< 0.026) and weight for age (P< 0.001) less than the expected value.Additionally, 19 (22%) children were overweight and 6 (7%) were obese post treatment.Age, Gender and Radiation therapy were found to have no significant impact on the growth.