Serum cytokine profiling identifies IL-17A and IL-10 as prognostic biomarkers for disease outcome in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood malignancy, yet reliable serum biomarkers for prognosis and relapse prediction remain limited. We profiled serum cytokines in 60 pediatric ALL patients and 19 healthy controls using the Aimplex Cytokine Assay, and evaluated predictive performance via receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression. ALL patients exhibited significantly elevated levels of IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-4, IL-10, IL-17A, and TNF-α compared with controls. Among these, IL-17A and IL-10 showed the strongest associations with disease severity and relapse risk, with higher baseline levels correlating with increased relapse probability (p = 0.02 and p = 0.005) and longer time to achieve remission in multivariate LASSO models. These findings identify IL-17A and IL-10 as promising prognostic biomarkers for pediatric ALL, with potential application in risk stratification and guiding individualized treatment strategies.