Survival Analysis Applied to Remission of Severe Oral Mucositis in Cancer Pediatric Patients

Objectives: To analyze the variables involved in severe oral mucositis remission time in cancer pediatric patients.
Methods: This is a longitudinal, retrospective and quantitative study, developed at Napoleão Laureano Hospital, in the city of João Pessoa, Brazil, between april 2013 and july 2015. The sample consisted of 79 patients with 0-18 years-old, which passed through an oral evaluation, following the criteria of Oral Assessment Guide (OAG) modified and had your check records analyzed. Survival analysis was performed using parametric, semi-parametric and nonparametric techniques.
Results: Most patients were male 53% (n=42) and mean age was 7.76 years (±5.3). Nonparametric statistics Kaplan-Meier showed that the average time to regression of mucositis is about the 20th week, which has about 30,6% chance for remission of severe oral mucositis. From the Logrank test and Peto, it was observed that the variables metastasis and age have statistically significant difference between observations at 10% level of significance (p<0.1). By adjusting the parametric models, the Log-normal model is best suited to the data (p=0.018), however the semi-parametric Cox model showed a better adjustment and adaptation (p=0,006) by providing the following results: patients aged over 10 years has a regression rate of mucositis 38% lower than those aged 10 years or below and metastasis increased mucositis regression rate in 2.68 times.
Conclusions: Severe oral mucositis remission time in cancer pediatric patients is related to patients own factors, such as age, and presence of metastasis.