A Systematic Review of Survival of Children with Solid Tumors in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

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.