Advances in treatment have significantly improved cure rates in childhood malignancies as well as long-term survival.Some malignancies,like acute lymphocytic leukemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma,require long-term maintenance therapies and recently chemotherapy has been switched to an outpatient basis to improve quality of life.In the present study,we investigated the current situation of adverse events due to chemotherapy in pediatric outpatients and gathered information for use in devising measures to prevent them.We studied 572 instances of chemotherapy in 43 outpatients (two to 28 years old) from April 2005 to March 2006.The regimens were mainly for maintenance therapy and they were mild in intensity.The three major adverse events that we observed were neutropenia,infection and liver dysfunction,and in some cases they were treated symptomatically.Owing to adverse events,chemotherapy was postponed in 63 instances and in 13,hospitalization was necessary.However,in no instance was discontinuation of chemotherapy required.The chemotherapy execution ratio was 89%.Our findings indicate that chemotherapy was well-tolerated in pediatric outpatients and that it would be feasible to conduct it largely on an outpatient basis.
