Forecasting the Essential Chemotherapy Needed for Treatment of Children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

<p>Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common pediatric cancer, with contemporary therapy resulting in a 90% survival in high-income countries (HIC). However, an estimated 89% of the world’s children live in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) where survival is much lower. Lack of access to essential chemotherapy contributes significantly to the decreased survival rates for LMIC, and inaccurate forecasting of chemotherapy needed may lead to stockouts or oversupply. This chapter describes a simple forecasting system with population and patient-based multipliers for each drug used in the treatment of pediatric ALL, thus estimating the essential chemotherapy quantities needed for a single patient, facility, region, or country.</p> <p>We described a forecasting model for estimating essential chemotherapy in the treatment of childhood ALL to multipliers. Multipliers were obtained from a reference population of 10 million children evenly distributed (2.5 million each) across four age cohorts at 5-year intervals (0-4, 5-9, 10-14, and 15-19 years). The forecasting model and multipliers were applied to 171 countries with age-specific population data available in the United Nations 2017 World Populations Prospects. Results from the forecasting model and multipliers were compared to determine differences for each country and for countries with extreme population distributions across the pediatric age range. The multipliers produced results no greater than 15% of those obtained using the forecasting model.</p> <p>Multipliers allow healthcare providers, cancer centers, hospitals, countries, and drug manufacturers to accurately estimate the essential chemotherapy needs for a patient, facility, region, or country. This practical tool can be applied to other cancer diagnoses and treatment protocols.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing Science

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Lewis, Brian T.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Scott C. Howard

• Chemotherapy
• Forecasting
• Incidence
• Income
• LMIC
• Multipliers
• Diseases
• Health and Medical Administration
• Medicine and Health Sciences
• Nursing
• Pediatric Nursing

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dc.uthsc.edu/dissertations/520

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dc.uthsc.edu:dissertations-1520