Abstract

Anastasia Cheimarioti, Margarita Baka, Dimitrios Doganis, Alexandra Margeli, Konstantinos Ekmektzoglou, Vasileios Doulamis, Georgia Liapi, Petros Koukoutsakis, Ioannis Papassotiriou, Eleni Kosmidi, An

Our purpose was to report the safety of methotrexate in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated with the Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster-95 protocol. We also determined whether serial blood assessment of vitamin B12, folate, methotrexate, homocysteine, IL-8 and MCP-1 along with cerebrospinal fluid measurement of IL-8 and MCP-1 had any correlation with neurotoxicity and thromboembolic incidents. Out of 16 patients, 2 exhibited seizures, whereas 1 exhibited central retinal artery occlusion. Due to the small number of patients no robust conclusions could be drawn. More studies are needed so as to determine whether these biological parameters could be used as markers for toxicity.