Amaranto Suarez, Martha Piña, Diana X Nichols-Vinueza, John Lopera, Lyda Rengifo, Mauricio Mesa, Marcela Cardenas, Lisa Morrissey, Galo Veintemilla, Martha Vizcaino, Ligia Del Toro, Victor Vicuna, Jorge Fernandez, Donna Neuberg, Kristen Stevenson, Alejandro Gutierrez
BACKGROUND: Treatment-related mortality and abandonment of therapy are major barriers to successful treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in the developing world. PROCEDURE: A collaboration was undertaken between Instituto Nacional de Cancerologia (Bogota, Colombia), which serves a poor patient population in an upper-middle income country, and Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center (Boston, USA). Several interventions aimed at reducing toxic deaths and abandonment were implemented, including a reduced-intensity treatment regimen and a psychosocial effort targeting abandonment...
August 2015: Pediatric Blood & Cancer