Introduction:

Leukemia is the most frequent cancer in pediatric ages. Acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) accounts for 23% of cancer diagnoses in children at ages under 15 years and 75% of all leukemias. More than 90% of childhood acute myeloid leukemias (AML) are acute and the rest are chronic.

Objective:

To characterize acute leukemias in pediatric age in Cuba.

Methods:

Descriptive, longitudinal and retrospective study. The sample was 799 children from all over Cuba, who were treated in any of the country‘s seven pediatric hospitals accredited for the treatment of acute leukemias, between January 2006 and December 2015. As a summary measure for the quantitative variables, the mean and standard deviation were used. For all qualitative variables, the percentages of each group were calculated.

Results:

Incidence rates were 2.9 per 100,000 children. 95% were acute leukemias (70.6% lymphoid), with 34.9% corresponding to promyelocytic leukemia (PML) in AML. The male sex predominated and the average diagnosis age was 7.1 years. The percentage of complete remission in ALL was 91%, and 66.7% in AML. The frequency of disease relapse was 25.1% in ALL, 13.7% in LPM, and 45% in other myeloid leukemias. Overall and event-free survival was 89% and 63% in children with ALL, 64% and 62% in LPM, 38% and 36% in non-promyelocytic AML, respectively.

Conclusions:

Frequency and age distribution of leukemias in Cuban children are similar to that described worldwide. The results of treatment in acute leukemias in general can be considered as good.

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