Early mortality in children with cancer in the National Institution of Pediatrics, Mexico.

Abstract

e19004 Background: Children cancer represents the first cause of mortality by disease worldwide. Early mortality is defined as death within the first four weeks since the patient’s admission to the hospital, and it is an indicator to evaluate attention quality. It is considered that early mortality rate must be less than 5% in acute lymphoblastic leukemias, although it is not standardized in solid tumors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the early mortality rate in a third level pediatric center. Methods: We have conducted a retrospective analysis of oncology patient records dating from January 2012 to April 2017 diagnosed and treated in the National Institute of Pediatrics in Mexico. Patients who died in the first four weeks from diagnosis were included in our study. Clinical characteristics were analyzed with an univariate analyses using measures of central tendency for quantitative data and proportions for qualitative. We used SPSS-20 for all analyses. Results: A total of 1500 patients were diagnosed with neoplastic disease at the Institute within 2012 and 2017, 34 (2.26%) of them had an early death. Median age of diagnosis was 5 years. Central nervous system (CNS) tumors were the predominant group associated to early mortality (23.5%), followed by hepatocarcinoma, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), neuroblastoma, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), and Wilms tumor (5.9% each). 70.6% had metastatic disease at diagnosis. Main cause of death was progression of disease (60%), followed by infectious complications (35%). Only one patient was treated by palliative care. Conclusions: In spite of children cancer care innovations, early death rates are still high, mainly because of delay in diagnosis at advanced stages of the disease. Another important factor in low-middle income countries is treatment abandonment, which is higher in patients who live in precarious conditions and live in isolated communities and must travel long distances to get medical attention. As healthcare professionals from a low-middle income country, we still have a lot to do to prevent our patients early mortality.