Abstract
Aim
This study aimed to evaluate the time to diagnosis of pediatric cancer and associated comorbidities during cancer therapy.
Subject and Methods
This was a prospective observational study with a 20-month follow-up of 146 pediatric patients diagnosed with cancer and treated in northeastern Brazil.
Results
The mean age of the participants was 8.2 (± 5.4) years; most of them were males (n = 86; 58.9%) and had been diagnosed with hematologic neoplasms (n = 72; 49.3%). The initial signs and symptoms presented by the patients were associated with the cancer diagnosis (P < 0.05). The median time to diagnosis was 35.0 days. Deaths were more frequent in patients with acute lymphoid leukemia (P = 0.036), and the occurrence of metastasis was significantly related to death (P < 0.001).
Conclusion
The pediatric cancer patients who participated in our study had their signs and symptoms misdiagnosed and treated as common childhood issues. However, while the cancer diagnosis was late, the time to diagnosis was not associated with the occurrence of metastasis, need for amputation/disarticulation, or death.
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Availability of data and materials
A full copy of this data set is available upon request by emailing anamvalenca@gmail.com.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) [postdoctoral scholarship] and by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) [scientific training scholarship].
Funding
This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – (CAPES) (ILAR - Finance Code 001- postdoctoral level) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (ACRM - scientific initiation scholarship).
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Isabella Lima Arrais Ribeiro: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, project administration, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing. Ana Carolina Rodrigues de Melo: formal analysis, data curation, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing. Bianca Marques Santiago: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, data curation, project administration, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing. Ricardo Dias de Castro: data curation, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing. Paulo Rogério Ferreti Bonan: methodology, formal analysis, data curation, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing. Eliane Medeiros-Serpa: visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing. Ana Maria Gondim Valença: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, data curation, project administration, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing.
All authors critically reviewed all drafts of the manuscript and approved its final version.
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This study was carried out following national (Resolution 466/12 of the National Health Council, CNS in the Portuguese acronym) and international (Declaration of Helsinki) regulations of research involving human participants. This study was previously approved by the Ethics Committee on Human Research at the Center for Health Sciences of the Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants (or parent/legal guardian if the participant was a minor) included in the study.
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Ribeiro, I.L.A., de Melo, A.C.R., Santiago, B.M. et al. Time to diagnosis of pediatric cancer and factors that require attention. J Public Health (Berl.) 31, 397–404 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01517-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01517-x