Clinical Characteristics of and Cancer Incidence in Children Evaluated for Lymphadenoapthy Referred to Pediatric Oncology Clinics

Özet

Objectives: In our study, we aimed to investigate the clinical characteristics and cancer frequency in patients referred to our pediatriconcology outpatient clinic for lymphadenopathy.Methods: The charts of patients admitted to our pediatric oncology outpatient clinics for lymphadenopathy between January 2014,and December 2016 were retrospectively reviewed in this study. Age, gender, duration of complaints, previous therapies, systemicsigns and symptoms, lymph node characteristics and laboratory findings were recorded. The frequency of malignancy was calculated.Results: One hundred thirty-four patients (34 girls) with a median age of six years (range four months-17 years) were includedin our study. The majority of the patients (98%) had localized lymphadenopathy and the head and neck region was the mostcommon site of involvement (87%). The median long-axis diameter of lymph nodes ranged between 0.5 cm and 5 cm (median2 cm) by physical examination. Twenty-one patients (15.6%) had lymph node biopsy. Four patients had ruptured epidermal cyst,lymphangioma, pilomatricoma and ectopic thymus. Of the other biopsies, nine patients were diagnosed with reactive LAP, fourwith lymphadenitis, and four with Hodgkin’s disease. The lymphoma patients had lymph node size greater than 2.5 cm and theduration of lymphadenopathy was longer than four weeks. Three out of four patients had systemic clinical findings accompanyinglymph node enlargement.Conclusion: Three percent of the patients with lymphadenopathy who were referred for suspected malignancy received a cancerdiagnosis. This rate, which is too low for a reference center, suggested that the patients might be referred to the pediatric oncologyoutpatient clinic without a thorough evaluation in primary health care.