Socio-Economic Factors Greatly Influence Prognosis.

2001 MAR 15 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

by Michael Greer, staff medical writer -- Disadvantaged children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have a much poorer prognosis than children from higher socioeconomic classes, researchers say.

Marcos Borato Viana and colleagues in Brazil reviewed 30 years worth of data on the impact of class and associated variables on ALL outcomes.

While these studies supported the idea that economic status plays a major role in the course of ALL, some of their conclusions were surprising,Viana et al. reported in the online edition of the journal Haematologica.

Discrepancies in the outcome of the disease …