ASH: Financial Difficulties Common During Pediatric Leukemia Treatment

MONDAY, Dec. 15, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Nearly one-third of families of children receiving chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) develop serious financial difficulties during their child”s treatment, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, held from Dec. 6 to 9 in Orlando, Florida.

Daniel Zheng, M.D., from the Children”s Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues presented results from the first pediatric oncology clinical trial to systematically collect longitudinal household material hardship (HMH) and household income data. Children aged 1 to <22 years with de novo B- or T-cell ALL were enrolled. Parents/guardians completed surveys within 32 days of trial enrollment and at six, 12, and 24 months. The primary end point of interest was financial toxicity, defined as development of any new HMH domain (food, housing, or utility insecurity) and catastrophic income loss (≥25 percent) at six to 24 months versus baseline.

Of 422 participants, 115 (27 percent) reported HMH at baseline. The researchers found that the cumulative incidence of any new HMH was 19.3, 27.7, and 30.0 percent at six, 12, and 24 months, respectively. The cumulative incidence of catastrophic income loss was 20.3, 28.6, and 31.5 percent at six, 12, and 24 months, respectively. The cumulative incidences of any new HMH or catastrophic income loss at 24 months were 24.3 and 27.9 percent, respectively, among 307 families with no HMH at baseline.

“It was striking to us that by 24 months, nearly a third of the families were unable to meet basic living costs at some point during their child”s ALL treatment,” Zheng said in a statement.

Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.

Abstract

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