Child’s symptom burden and depressive symptoms among caregivers of children with cancers: an argument for early integration of pediatric palliative care

Childhood cancers have been linked with good prognosis as well as likelihood of full remission when treatment is early and optimum in general (1-3). Contrarily, such do not depict the situation in resource-restricted settings where childhood cancers are often characterized by late presentation, high symptom burden, compromised care and poorer survival. For instance, close to 160,000 new cases of childhood cancers occur in low and middle income countries annually; and despite its treatability, childhood cancers constitute the fourth leading contributory cancer to the number of years lost (4). This is not surprising, given that cancer diagnosis along with its care is still largely enmeshed in myths, stigma, denial and poor health resources across most of the developing contexts (5,6)