title: A practical approach to reporting treatment abandonment in pediatric chronic conditions.
abstract: Treatment abandonment, the failure to complete therapy that is required for definitive disease control, frequently causes treatment failure for pediatric patients in low- and middle-income countries with chronic conditions, particularly cancer. Other forms of incomplete treatment affecting children in all settings, such as nonadherence and loss to follow-up, are often confused with treatment abandonment. Unclear definitions of incomplete treatment dramatically affect reported outcomes. To facilitate disease-specific and cross-sector analyses, we outline a practical approach to categorize forms of incomplete treatment, present distinct semantic categories with case examples and provide an algorithm that could be tailored to disease- and context-specific needs.
authors.affiliation: St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee.
authors.forename: Meaghann S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Weaver
authors.forename: Ramandeep S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Arora
authors.forename: Scott C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Howard
authors.forename: Carmen E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Salaverria
authors.forename: Yen-Lin
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Raul C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Ribeiro
authors.forename: Catherine G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Lam
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000191:economics* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*
keywords: adherence; chronic disease; loss to follow-up; outcome evaluation; treatment abandonment; treatment failure