Evaluation of Oxidative Stress in Patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Experimental Evidence of the Efficacy of MDA as Cancer Biomarker in Young Patients

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a fatal disorder in most cases and is the most common cancer in young patients. ALL features an uncontrolled proliferation and maturation arrest of lymphoid progenitor cells (lymphoblast) in the bone marrow. An increase of reactive species production occurs in ALL with an involvement of oxidative stress (OS) and cellular damage. However, there is a lack of information about variations in young patients. The biomarker widely used to measure the OS is the main product of lipid peroxidation, the malondialdehyde (MDA). This biomarker, when evaluated by a chromatographic method and the data analyzed by multivariate analysis with other biochemical parameters of ALL patient charts, shows the distinction of healthy and ALL patients, and a great correlation with the risk of disease.