Sex and acid phosphatase in childhood non-T lymphoblastic leukaemia.

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Abstract
A semiquantitative assessment of blast cell acid phosphatase activity, expressed as a score, was made in 41 unselected children with newly diagnosed and untreated non-T [thymus-derived] acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Despite a wide range of enzyme activity in both sexes, boys had significantly higher scores than girls. In view of the known association between males and T ALL and between acid phosphatase and T ALL, these findings raise the possibility that boys may have a predisposition to a type of pre-T ALL which could contribute to the as yet unexplained difference in prognosis between the sexes.