Global access to essential medicines for childhood cancer: A cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Purpose Global data mapping access to essential chemotherapeutics for pediatric cancer are scarce. We report a survey of international pediatric cancer care providers' access to these medicines. Methods A Web-based survey was sent to pediatric oncologists registered on the Cure4Kids Web portal. We queried chemotherapeutics in the WHO Essential Medicines List for Children, from which the average proportional availability was summarized as each country's access score. In addition, we examined availability of drug packages defned by the WHO-sanctioned Expert Committee for eight pediatric cancers. We undertook a sensitivity analysis investigating how regimen access would change if the cytotoxics specifed in recent agreements between the Clinton Health Access Initiative, American Cancer Society, and pharmaceutical companies were universally available. Results There were signifcant (P