Purpose: Retinoblastoma, a curable childhood cancer, has been identified as a tracer cancer in the WHO Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer. To document the outcomes of children with retinoblastoma in South Africa, treated as per the first prospective standard national treatment guidelines for childhood cancer in South Africa.
Patients and methods: All children diagnosed with retinoblastoma between 2012 and 2016 in five South African pediatric oncology units were treated with a standard treatment on the basis of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology-Pediatric Oncology in Developing Countries guidelines for high-income settings. Treatment included focal therapy with/without chemotherapy, or enucleation with/without chemotherapy, and orbital radiotherapy, depending on enucleated eye histology. The end point was survival at 24 months, using Kaplan-Meier curves with log-rank (Mantel-Cox) and chi-square (χ2) tests with respective P values reported.
Results: A total of 178 children were included in the study; 68% presented with unilateral disease. The median age was 27 months (range 0-118 months) with a male:female ratio of 1:0.75. The overall survival was 79% at 24 months with significant association with stage at diagnosis (P < .001) and older age over 2 years as opposed to younger than 2 years (P < .001). Causes of death were disease progression/relapses in 90% (34 of 38) and unknown in 2% (1 of 38), whereas treatment abandonment was 1.7% (3 of 178).
Conclusion: Efficacy with national treatment guidelines was confirmed, and feasibility of implementing standard national childhood cancer treatment guidelines was documented, involving multidisciplinary teams in South Africa. Outcome was significantly associated with stage at diagnosis and age.