Time in the diagnosis and referral of children with neoplastic disease from 1 month to 14 years old treated at the Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño in 2008-2010 and referred to the “Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplásicas

Abstract

Introduction: Recently childhood cancer has been gaining importance in the field of pediatrics. However pediatric malignancies can be difficult to diagnose in the doctor's office. The index of suspicion is often low especially for the relative rarity of these diseases.

Objective: To know the time of diagnosis and referral of children with neoplastic disease from 1 month to 14 years old treated at the Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño (INSN) in 2008-2010 and referred to the Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Neoplásicas (INEN).

Methods: We reviewed 225 charts of patients with a diagnosis of malignancy diagnosed between 2008 and 2010.

Results: The time of illness reported by the patients before the first evaluation at the Instituto Nacional de Salud del Niño averaged 77.5 days. The most common diagnoses were leukemias in 43% of cases, followed by brain tumors in 20%. The mean hospital stay of all malignancies was 10 days. About the time of diagnosis of neoplasms, the average time to diagnosis was 10 days. 49% of neoplasms generally diagnosed in the first 5 days of hospitalization, with leukemia the most frequently diagnosed malignancy within first 5 days of hospitalization. The reference time average was 8 days.

Conclusions: The time of diagnosis of pediatric patients with diagnoses of malignancies is longer overall, but service dependency hospitalization and patient diagnosis.