Childhood malignancies in University of Abuja Teaching Hospital Gwagwalada, Abuja, Nigeria.

Background: Mortality from malignancies in children remains high. Creating awareness of the disease and advocacy for funding of a cancer research center are pertinent. Objective: To determine the incidence and outcome of children with cancers at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwaglada, Abuja- FCT, Nigeria Method: This was a 5 year prospective study of all diagnosed cancer patients admitted into the paediatric ward. The type of cancer, method of diagnosis, clinical staging and outcomes were entered and frequency tables generated on Microsoft Excel. Results: Forty-six patients were diagnosed with cancer within the study period. Burkitt's lymphoma was the highest encountred malignancy, while medulloblastoma was least occurring. Only 36.9 percent (N=17) of patients received chemotherapy. Of these, 6.5 percent (n=3) completed therapy. Twenty nine percent of patients died. 4 percent of those that died had commenced chemotherapy. There was a 70 percent treatment default rate. One patient was referred on request to another tertiary center. All other patients were lost to follow up. Conclusion: Management of childhood cancers still poses a problem. Poverty, ignorance and lack of cancer research units contributed to our poor outcome. The greater involvement of government and international non-governmental organizations (NGO) which assist health sector is advocated in the establishment of cancer research centers and the provision of free chemotherapeutic agents.