Key Statistics for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL)

The American Cancer Society’s estimates for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in the United States for 2025 (including both children and adults) are:

• About 6,100 new cases of ALL (3,450 in males and 2,650 in females)
• About 1,400 deaths from ALL (720 in males and 680 in females)

The risk of developing ALL is highest in children younger than 5 years of age.

Risk declines slowly until the mid-20s and begins to rise again slowly after age 50. Overall, a little less than half of all cases of ALL are in adults.

ALL is not common.

• It accounts for less than half of 1% of all cancers in the United States.
• The average person’s lifetime risk of getting ALL is about 1 in 1,000.
• The risk is slightly higher in males than females and higher in White people than Black people.

Most cases of ALL occur in children, but most deaths from ALL occur in adults.

Children seem to do better than adults because of differences in the nature of childhood ALL and adult ALL, and because of differences in treatment. Children tend to get (and to tolerate) more aggressive treatment than adults.

Visit the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Statistics Center for more key statistics.