Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in childhood: clinical and epidemiological characteristics and survival analysis at a single center in Northeast Brazil.

OBJECTIVE To describe the clinical and demographic characteristics of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients diagnosed at the Pediatric Oncology Unit at the Instituto Materno-Infantil Professor Fernando Figueira (IMIP) over a 9-year period, and also to describe their survival rates and possible associations between the survival rates and the clinical and demographic characteristics analyzed in the study. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study. Data were collected by a retrospective review of the charts of all 110 patients admitted to our unit during the period of May 1994 through May 2003. Probability of survival was calculated in accordance with the techniques of Kaplan-Meier, using log rank to evaluate differences between the groups. RESULTS The average age was 6.1 years. The male/female ratio was 2.4:1. The most frequent histological subtype was Burkitt's lymphoma. The majority of patients had been diagnosed with advanced disease (stage III or IV of Murphy's Classification) and was from rural areas. Family income per capita was lower than 1/2 minimum wage in 36.4% of cases; maternal illiteracy was observed in 12.7% of cases. The 5-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates were 70+/-4% and 68.4+/-4%, respectively. None of the clinical-demographic characteristics had a significant association with the probability of survival (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION Children admitted to the IMIP seemed to be affected by non-Hodgkin lymphoma at a younger age, with a higher incidence of Burkitt's lymphoma and with survival rates similar to those described in the literature of developed countries. No clinical demographic characteristics had a statistically significant association with prognosis