Potential protein biomarkers of central nervous system infiltration in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Abstract

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common neoplasia among children worldwide, and the main cause of death by cancer in patients with less than 18 years, thus representing a serious health concern. One problem of ALL is the infiltration of leukemic cells in the central nervous system (CNS), which is only detected in the 3-5% of children in their diagnostic due to a lack of sensibility and specificity, which compromises an efficient prognostic and follow-up of the disease. This drawback demands the search of novel biomarkers of infiltration. Therefore, this review focuses on 1) the relevance of cerebrospinal fluid proteomics and protein biomarkers as possible candidates to aim in the diagnostic of pediatric patients with ALL that display CNS infiltration and 2) a general perspective of the methods for analyzing biomarkers in the CSF to further comprehend the leukemia in the CNS.