Background and importance Despite the public health importance of the problems posed by cancer, there are few studies focusing on the economic aspects, particularly those devoted to second-line treatment, to manage the secondary events associated with cytotoxic drugs.

Aim and objectives The objective of this study was to estimate and evaluate the cost of the management of secondary events following chemotherapy treatments in children.

Material and methods This was an ‘indirect cost of illness’ study conducted by the analysis of 63 medical records of children with eight different types of cancer who all received cisplatin in their chemotherapy protocols and who were being treated in the paediatric hemato-oncology department of Rabat.

Results We analysed 45/63 medical records because of their unavailability at the time of the analysis. 80% of the patients were still undergoing treatment, 7% were under palliative treatment, and 13% died. Median age was 5 years.

Cancer type: neuroblastoma 51%, malignant germ cell tumour 13%, medulloblastoma 11%, osteosarcoma 9%, nasopharyngeal undifferentiated carcinoma 7%, hepatoblastoma 5%, and 2% each for metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma and sacrococcygeal teratoma.

Only sacrococcygeal teratoma and metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, which showed 127 managements in front of the appeared side effects, in 88% of cases the drugs were administered to correct adverse effects, in 5.5% the cures were shifted, in 4.7% the cures were stopped and in 1.8% the dosages were reduced.

Based on the cost of the drugs administered to treat and correct the side effects of these two types of cancer, we noted a total of €4500 in addition to the cost of chemotherapy.

Conclusion and relevance According to our results, the cost of management of secondary events related to cytotoxic drugs is considerable, so it is necessary to focus on other studies to evaluate the pharmacoeconomic impact of the indirect costs of these diseases.

Conflict of interest No conflict of interest