Treatment abandonment
Treatment abandonment includes failure to start treatment or treatment
dropout. Treatment dropout is defined as treatment discontinuation for
at least four weeks consecutively [12]. Of the 169 cancer cases
requiring chemotherapy, 148 (88%) initiated chemotherapy. However,
among those that started chemotherapy, 28 did not complete the required
number of sessions, corresponding to a treatment dropout rate of 19%.
In total, about 30% of patients with pediatric cancer, who were
eligible for chemotherapy, abandoned their treatment. Figure 2
illustrates the pediatric chemotherapy cascade for the two hospitals.