Leukemia mortality trends among children, adolescents, and young adults in Latin America Tendencias de la mortalidad por leucemia en niños, adolescentes y adultos jóvenes en América Latina

• Main Authors: Maria Paula Curado, Thais Pontes, Marta E. Guerra-Yi, Marianna de Camargo Cancela
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish; Portuguese
• Published: Pan American Health Organization 2011
• Subjects: Leucemia; niño; adulto joven; adolescente; América Latina; Leukemia; child; young adult; adolescent; Latin America; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic; Argentina; Uruguay
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/16f14f66953149dab39191766531918d

OBJECTIVE: To describe and compare trends in leukemia mortality among children (0-14 years of age) and adolescents and young adults (AYA, 15-24 years of age) in 12 countries in Latin America during 1980-2004. METHODS: Data from the World Health Organization mortality database was analyzed using a joinpoint regression model to identify significant mortality rate changes over time and to estimate annual percent change. RESULTS: Leukemia is ranked first among cancer-related causes of death among children and AYA in Latin America. In children, the global percentage changes indicate increased rates for both sexes in Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, with substantially higher rates for Mexico. In AYA, significant increases were observed for both sexes in Mexico; Ecuador saw some increase for both sexes; and Colombia and Uruguay had increases in females only. Downward trends were observed in Argentina for both sexes, and in Costa Rica for males only. There were no major changes in the other countries analyzed. CONCLUSIONS: Leukemia mortality rates among AYA are declining, but show less significant decreases than rates among children. The study results point to a global need for further advances, specifically for AYA, similar to those made by childhood leukemia therapeutic protocols. Also, specialized oncological centers exist in most countries of Latin America, but they are often inaccessible. Special attention should be given to Mexico due to the significant increase in mortality rates. OBJETIVO: Describir y comparar las tendencias de la mortalidad por leucemia en los niños (entre los 0 y los 14 años de edad) y en los adolescentes y adultos jóvenes (entre los 15 y los 24 años de edad) en 12 países de América Latina entre 1980 y el 2004. MÉTODOS: Se analizaron los datos sobre mortalidad de la base de datos de la Organización Mundial de la Salud mediante un modelo de regresión joinpoint, con el fin de detectar los cambios significativos en la tasa de mortalidad con el transcurso del tiempo y calcular la variación ...