Deletions of chromosome 6q have been reported in several hematological malignancies, but data are not conclusive regarding their biological and prognostic impact. Therefore, we focused on pediatric patients diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL) treated uniformly according to the NHL-BFM95 protocol. We used loss-of-heterozygosity (LOH) analysis of 25 microsatellite markers located on chromosome 6q14-q24. Fragment-length analysis was performed on ABI-PRISM3100 Genetic-Analyzer. Eligibility criterion was > or =3 informative markers. Between April 1995 and March 2003, 185 T-LBL patients were treated according to the NHL-BFM95 protocol. Five-year event-free (EFS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were 79+/-3 and 87+/-3% (median follow-up 4.7 [1.2-10.1] years). Sixty-one patients were evaluable for LOH analysis, including 18 out of 23 patients with relapse. EFS and DFS were 67+/-6 and 69+/-6% for these 61 patients. Testing of 853 markers in the 61 patients identified the presence of LOH in 19 patients (31%): 13 of the 18 relapse patients and five of the 41 in complete remission (odds ratio 18.7, 95% confidence interval 4.7-75.3). One LOH-positive patient died from treatment-related toxicity. We conclude that LOH on chromosome 6q14-q24 may have conferred a high risk of relapse on our group of children with T-LBL treated according to the NHL-BFM95 protocol.