A Systematic Review of Survival of Children with Solid Tumors in Low-
and Middle-Income Countries
Abstract
Population-level estimates of the survival of children from low- and
middle-income countries diagnosed with solid tumors do not currently
exist, in contrast to outcomes of hematologic and central nervous system
cancers, which have been collated from population-based cancer
registries and published by the CONCORD Programme. To fill this
knowledge gap, we conducted a systematic review of PubMed Legacy,
Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Registry of Controlled Trials,
and three regional databases for publications that reported survival of
children diagnosed age 0-14 years with any malignancy from January 2011
to December 2016. The search identified 4695 original records; 51
articles met inclusion criteria. The range of survival reported was
broad; for instance, 5-year overall survival for retinoblastoma ranged
from 48% in Central America to 98% in China. However, the paucity of
published statistics prevented approaches for meta-analyses and
emphasizes the need for more standardized data collection and reporting.