Treatment of Pediatric non‐Hodgkin lymphomas in a country with limited resources: Results of the first national protocol in Nicaragua

Abstract

We report the results of a protocol for the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric non‐Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) conducted in Nicaragua in the context of an international collaborative program. Fifty‐three children with NHL treated between 1996 and 2003 were retrospectively evaluated. Therapy was designed based on local drug availability and affordability with dose and schedule adaptations for Burkitt and lymphoblastic lymphomas. With a median follow‐up of 3 years, the projected 9‐year overall survival was 63% and event‐free survival 53%. The treatment was efficacious, feasible, and well tolerated in spite of the local socio‐economical conditions. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2008;50:148–152. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Pediatric Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Retrospective 14-Year Experience with Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster (BFM) Protocols from a Tertiary Care Hospital in Serbia

“…Stage distribution as well as primary localization of the disease in our patients corresponds to literature data [2,17,20]. CNS affection was diagnosed only in 1 patient with primary CNS lymphoma.…”

“…pEFS at 84.1% corresponds to the results of the largest multicenter BFM study (85% ± 1%) [2]. Death due to sepsis at 5.3% is significantly higher than the 2% that has been reported in developed countries but also lower than in other countries with limited resources [17,27]. Important factors contributing to treatment outcome also include socioeconomical conditions of the country, which significantly affect health-care facilities as well as living conditions of the patient [28].…”

“…Median age at diagnosis of NHL is about 10 years, compared to our patients whose median age was 8.2 years. This may be explained by the fact that NHL is more common in younger age groups in developing countries [17][18][19].…”

Mature B-Cell Lymphoma and Leukemia in Children and Adolescents—Review of Standard Chemotherapy Regimen and Perspectives

“…Despite the large treatment groups like the COG, LMB, or BFM, results of clinical trials of various parts of the world were reported recently [42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. A selection of these encouraging results are summarized in the Table 5.…”

Bridging the Childhood Cancer Mortality Gap Between Economically Developed and Low-income Countries

“…7 The Wilms tumor result was achieved without radiation therapy, an important landmark for many countries around the world where that modality is not available at all.…”