[Can the course of an acute leukemia be predicted?]

65 unselected patients with acute leukemia, diagnosed in 1971 to 1978, were analysed for prognostic factors. The survival-curves (constructed by means of Kaplan-Meier-estimation) were compared with Logrank and generalized Wilcoxon Test. Response to therapy, age, sex, initial granulocyte and platelet-count, LDH and portion of peripheral blasts were examined. The median survival time of patients with partial or complete remission (35.5 weeks) was almost six times as long as in treated patients without remission. The prognosis got worse in higher age. Women had with 7.5 weeks a shorter survival time compared to men with 23 weeks. The same was true for low initial platelet-count, high peripheral blast-portion and high LDH. The morphologic type and initial granulocyte counts had no prognostic value.