Therapy of Acute Leukaemia

use of blood transfusions, antibiotics, steroid hormones, the purine or folic acid antagonists will, in some cases, cause temporary improvement. A few patients treated by these agents may be restored for short periods to almost normal health. These measures, however, have been aptly described by Dameshek (1957) as of only " pathetic benefit " and he further states that should any really good agents become available, the present re'gimes would be rapidly discarded. Until such an event occurs, it is pertinent to examine the therapies at present available and attempt to assess the optimum way in which they can be used. The difficulties in attempting to assess the relative merits of the various therapeutic re'gimes, as reported from different centres, have been repeatedly emphasised (Wintrobe, 1957 Hayhoe, 1960. In reported series, the selection of patients, the morphological types of disease, the efficiency of what Farber (1957) refers to as " total care " and the criteria for expression of results, all combine to make direct comparisons largely invalid. If different re'gimes of therapy are used in the same centre, and the results compared, then many of the factors referred to above are cancelled out and a more accurate assessment becomes possible.