The complete blood count in the early diagnosis of acute leukemia in children

Acute leukemia (AL) is the most common malignant disease in children, and one of the most important causes of death in pediatric age. For practical purposes, one in three children with cancer has AL, and three to four new cases occur each year per 100,000 children under 15 years of age. In Mexico, there are about 1000 new cases diagnosed per year, so the pediatrician and family physician ideally need tools that allow for early diagnosis. There are a series of important prognostic factors, particularly in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), which is the variety that explains 85--90% of all cases of leukemia in children. This factors allow us to make a distinction between at least three risk groups for relapse of the disease, namely, low risk, standard risk and high risk. Each of these three groups receives different chemotherapy treatment protocols; children at high risk receive the most intense treatment and those at low risk are in turn easier to handle and less likely to generate complications. It is clear, that to offer the most appropriate treatment for each of the children, it is essential to carry out this distinction of risk groups and prevent a patient at low risk of relapse from receiving an intense treatment that exposes them to unnecessary toxic effects, and also preventing a high risk patient from receiving an insufficient chemotherapy scheme, which would significantly reduce their chances of being cured. It should be stressed that these prognostic