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The authors declare they have no potential conflicts of interest concerning drugs, products, or services used in the study. The Editorial Board declares that the manu script met the ICMJE "uniform requirements" for biomedical papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Anthracyclines are known cardiotoxic agents. Anthracycline therapy increases the risk of long-term cardiac adverse effects in oncology patients., Case Report: We report the case of a young male patient with severe congestive heart failure. The patient was treated for childhood acute myeloid leukemia by chemotherapy containing anthracyclines. Manifest dilated cardiomyopathy was developing ten years after the termination of chemotherapy with symptoms of left ventricular heart failure. Seventeen years following the end of cytostatic therapy the patient underwent heart transplantantation as ultimum refugium., Conclusions: Late cardiac complications may become a serious therapeutic problem. In such cases, the heart transplantation seems to be the only effective approach otherwise terminal forms of the heart failure.

The authors evaluate their own results of examinations using a flow cytometer in 72 patients (22 children and 50 adults) with acute leukaemia, incl. 34 acute lymphatic leukaemias and 38 acute myeloid leukaemias during the period between January 1994 and October 1995. At the same time the authors draw attention to the clinical importance in the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis as well as to different findings in children and adults.

In the course of a 12-year period the authors treated at the Paediatric Department of the Regional Institute of National Health in Banská Bystrica 72 children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia according to four protocols. Complete remission was achieved by 67 children, i.e. 93%. None of the children died from complications of treatment during complete remission. A relapse during treatment or soon after its termination occurred in 23 children, i.e. 31.9%. A second complete remission was achieved in 15 children, i.e. 65.2%. During the second complete remission seven children survive for 0.5-91.5 months. Twenty children died, i.e. 27.8%. All children had at the time of death signs of malignant disease. Fifty-two children survive at present for 1-132 months. The cumulative ratio of surviving children in the 12th year since the diagnosis is 0.57, the cumulative ratio of children in initial complete remission in the 12th year is 0.51.