Abstract

Audit of Deaths in a Pediatric Oncology Unit in Sub-Saharan Africa

In high-income countries, about 20% of children with cancer die and cancer is the second leading cause of death in children. This rate remains stable, opening the way to clinical research to identify new therapeutic alternatives. Reported mortality rates are around 80% in low- and middle-income countries. African publications on the mortality of children with cancer are rare. In the pediatric oncology unit of the Treichville university hospital in Abidjan, the overall survival of children with cancer reported in a population of 331 cases recruited from 1995 to 2004 was 9.4% and the mortality rate during the study period was 39.3%. We carried out an audit to identify the causes of death of hospitalized children and to improve the survival of patients in the pediatric oncology unit


Author(s): Line G Sylvie Couitchere, Egnon K V Kouakou, Joseph Ouattara, Mariette Egesi, Lea Zaho, Soumahoro Mathurin Oulai and Michael Silbermann

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