Table 3:
Proportion of children enrolled in a clinical trial, with metastatic disease at cancer diagnosis and who died within 30 days
| Patient characteristic | Baseline period | Pandemic | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
||||||
| December 2017–February 2020 | March–May 2020 | June–August 2020 | September–November 2020 | ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||
| Median % (range) | No.* (%) n = 235 |
RR (95% CI) | No.(%) n = 240 |
RR (95% CI) | No. (%) n = 220 |
RR (95% CI) | |
| Patients enrolled in a clinical trial at cancer diagnosis | |||||||
|
| |||||||
| All cancers combined | 8.8 (4.7–15.6) | 25 (10.7) | 1.22 (0.70–2.13) | 35 (14.0) | 1.60 (0.95–2.69) | 35 (15.0) | 1.71 (1.01–2.89) |
|
| |||||||
| Leukemia and lymphoma | 12.3 (4.6–30.8) | 20 (19.1) | 1.55 (0.83–2.91) | 30 (21.2) | 1.73 (0.96–3.12) | 35 (31.0) | 2.52 (1.43–4.47) |
|
| |||||||
| CNS tumour | 2.5 (1.2–12.1) | 5 (3.8) | 1.13 (0.08–16.80) | < 5 (4.4) | 1.33 (0.09–19.76) | 0 (0) | 0.23§ (0.01–4.60) |
|
| |||||||
| Extracranial solid tumour | 8.5 (4.7–15.6) | 5 (4.0) | 0.61 (0.07–2.73) | 5 (6.1) | 0.93 (0.21–3.79) | < 5 (3.0) | 0.46 (0.05–2.26) |
|
| |||||||
| Patients with metastatic disease at cancer diagnosis | |||||||
|
| |||||||
| All cancers combined, except leukemia | 22.7 (16.9–28.0) | 30 (19.1) | 0.84 (0.55–1.29) | 45 (27.7) | 1.22 (0.84–1.79) | 30 (22.5) | 0.99 (0.65–1.49) |
|
| |||||||
| Lymphoma | 34.8 (21.1–43.2) | 5 (18.2) | 0.51 0.21–1.22) | 15 (34.1) | 0.95 (0.50–1.82) | 15 (44.4) | 1.24 (0.65–2.39) |
|
| |||||||
| CNS tumour | 4.7 (3.3–13.0) | < 5 (1.9) | 0.42 (0.02–4.08) | 10 (15.6) | 3.47 (0.96–22.07) | 5 (7.6) | 1.69 (0.37–12.46) |
|
| |||||||
| Extracranial solid tumour | 30.4 (22.4–37.2) | 25 (31.6) | 1.02 (0.64–1.63) | 20 (31.8) | 1.03 (0.64–1.67) | 15 (25.4) | 0.82 (0.49–1.39) |
|
| |||||||
| Patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with advanced disease | |||||||
|
| |||||||
| NCI high risk† | 28.3 (22.2–43.1) | 15 (33.3) | 1.18 (0.66–2.10) | 15 (27.9) | 0.99 (0.56–1.75) | 15 (27.8) | 0.98 (0.53–1.80) |
|
| |||||||
| CNS involvement‡ | 16.1 (8.7–26.9) | 15 (25.0) | 1.56 (0.73–3.30) | 20 (28.6) | 1.78 (0.89–3.56) | 15 (23.3) | 1.45 (0.68–3.09) |
|
| |||||||
| Patients who died within 30 days | |||||||
|
| |||||||
| All cancers combined | 1.2 (0.8–1.3) | 5 (2.1) | 1.73 (0.38–15.19) | < 5 (0.8) | 0.67 (0.08–4.14) | 0 (0) | 0.16§ (0.01–3.04) |
Note: CI = confidence interval, CNS = central nervous system, NCI = National Cancer Institute, RR = rate ratio.
*
The number of new cases were randomly rounded up or down to a multiple of 5 to reduce risk of disclosure, in line with Canadian Cancer Registry requirements, although percentages were based upon the true number of cases.
†
NCI high risk defined as age < 1 year or ≥ 10 years, or initial white blood cell count > 50 × 109/L.23
‡
Central nervous system involvement was defined as those with CNS2 or CNS3 status.
§
We added a correction factor of 0.5 in every cell containing a zero.