Objective: Our aim was to retrospectively analyze the epidemiological, clinical and laboratory features of patients who were diagnosed as acute leukemia and received chemotherapy in our hospital in a five-year period. All the systemic complications of these patients were also reviewed in order to contribute to the therapeutic approaches to such patients.

Material and Methods: A total of 97 patients who were followed by the pediatric hematology department between January 2004 and December 2008 were included in our study. The patients’ demographic, clinical, laboratory, radiological and echocardiographic characteristics at the time of diagnosis were documented. Finally, 94 of these patients were evaluated in terms of their systemic complications.results: The mean age was 6.0±4.1 (2 months -17 years) (min - max). Males made up 64.9% and females 35.1% of all cases. The diagnoses were acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 84.5% and acute myeloid leukemia in 15.5% of the patients. While the most common complaints were fever (63.9%) and fatigue (57.7%), the most common findings on physical examination were hepatomegaly (77.3%) and pallor (68%) at the time of diagnosis. The complications observed during chemotherapy in the patients were at least one episode of febrile neutropenic attack in 90%, five-fold increase in hepatic enzymes in 82.9%, mucositis in 43.6%, allergy to L-asparaginase in 28.7%, and compliance problems in 9.5%.conclusion: Childhood leukemia has a potential to cause complications in many organ systems due to both the disease itself and the chemotherapeutics used for the treatment. Multidisciplinary management and follow-up are required in the follow-up of children with acute leukemia

Keywords: Acute leukemia, Children, Chemotherapy, Complications