Causes of death in a pediatric oncology unit

Abstract

The causes of death among cancer patients are categorized as active primary disease, recurrent disease and other factors such as infections, drug toxicity metabolic disturbance, intracranial bleeding or surgery. This study was performed to determine the survival of patients with malignant disease and causes of death in childhood cancer. Two hundred-fifty three patients with malignancy were diagnosed and followed up at the Ege University from January 1988 to December 1993. Fifty-three percent of these patients died during the study period. Fifty-one percent of deaths occurred with active disease, 41.1% with active primary disease and 9.9% during recurrent disease. Seven patients (5.1%) died during remission. Infection was the cause of death in 37 patients (27.2%). Nine patients (6.6%) died due to intracranial bleeding, 6 (4.4%) due to drug toxicity, 5 (3.7%) due to surgical complications and one (0.7%) due to cerebral leukodystrophia. The relative risk of death due to leukemia, lymphoma and Wilms’ tumor was low. The comparison of percentage of death with corresponding referral percentages shows a relative increase in the risk of death due to CNS tumors, neuroblastoma, bone tumors and soft tissue sarcomas.