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. 2022 May 16;14(10):2451.
doi: 10.3390/cancers14102451.

Effect of Treatment in a Specialized Pediatric Hemato-Oncology Setting on 5-Year Survival in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Margrietha van der Linde  1 , Nikki van Leeuwen  1 , Frank Eijkenaar  2 , Anita W Rijneveld  3 , Rob Pieters  4   5 , Henrike E Karim-Kos  4   6
Affiliations

Effect of Treatment in a Specialized Pediatric Hemato-Oncology Setting on 5-Year Survival in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Margrietha van der Linde et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Survival rates of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are inferior to those of pediatric ALL patients. In part, this may be caused by differences in treatment setting. Generally, children are treated in specialized pediatric hemato-oncology settings, whereas AYAs are treated in adult hemato-oncology settings. Since 2005, adult treatment protocols have included pediatric-inspired chemotherapy, which has been the standard of care for AYAs from 2008 onwards. This study aims to assess whether, despite protocols in both settings having become more similar, there remains an effect of treatment in specialized pediatric hemato-oncology settings on 5-year survival for ALL patients in the Netherlands. We used nationwide registry data (2004-2013) on 472 ALL patients aged between 10 and 30 years old. A fuzzy regression discontinuity design was applied to estimate the treatment effect using two-stage least squares regression with the treatment threshold at 17 years and 7 months of age, adjusting for sex, age at diagnosis, and immunophenotype. We found a risk difference of 0.419 (p = 0.092; 95% CI = -0.0686; 0.907), meaning a 41.9 percentage point greater probability of surviving five years after diagnosis for ALL patients treated in specialized pediatric hemato-oncology settings. Our results suggest that ALL patients around the threshold could benefit from increased collaboration between pediatric and adult hemato-oncology in terms of survival.

Keywords: 5-year survival; ALL; AYAs; The Netherlands; causal inference; regression discontinuity; site of treatment; specialized pediatric hemato-oncology care.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) The percentage of the patients by age that were treated in specialized pediatric hemato-oncology care. (B) Unadjusted 5-year survival as a percentage of patients by age. (C) Number of patients by age. In panels (A–C), the vertical dashed lines represent the treatment threshold at 17 years and 7 months.
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