Survival in pediatric patients with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic: scoping systematic review.

Dorantes-Acosta, Elisa; Ávila-Montiel, Diana; Klünder-Klünder, Miguel; Juárez-Villegas, Luis; Márquez-González, Horacio

Background Coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 has currently affected 8,015,502 million people worldwide with global mortality around 5%. Information in pediatric cancer patients is still limited, but it is emerging day by day. The objective of this scoping review was to analyze the available data associated with COVID-19 infection and mortality in pediatric cancer patients and to provide useful information to plan and design strategies in this group. Methods A search was conducted, and eight articles were obtained for qualitative analysis; 110 patients were included, all from cross-sectional studies. At the time of publication, all the analyzed documents reported no deaths associated with COVID-19. Results According to the information, COVID-19 infection appears to be less severe in the pediatric population in comparison with adults and does not appear to be a cause of mortality in patients with childhood cancer. Conclusions Given the nature of preliminary reports and a short follow-up in cancer patients, it is necessary to have medium- and long-term follow-up studies to determine the effects of infection and modifications to the treatments of these patients.