Dr. James A. Wolff. II. First successful chemotherapy of acute leukemia

Until the late 1940s, no therapy was available for leukemia other than blood transfusion and a few antimicrobial agents. The disease ran its course uninfluenced by this treatment; most children died in a matter of a few months. The success of nitrogen mustard in the treatment of lymphomas and chronic leukemias encouraged efforts to try various drugs in the treatment of acute leukemia. In 1948, Farber and colleagues at the Boston Children's Hospital reported that aminopterin produced complete remissions in about one-third of children with acute leukemia. The dramatic success of this trial proved to be a monumental step forward for the field of cancer chemotherapy. Dr. Wolff was a pediatric resident and hematology fellow at the Boston Children's Hospital during the time that this important study was done. His first-hand experience gives valuable historical insight into how this giant step in cancer therapy research was accomplished.