Transfer to intensive care units for children with neoplasms: what decision-making tools are available?]

As a result of major progresses in anti-cancer treatment, many children with malignancy have to be admitted to an intensive care unit. Therefore it has become a necessity for paediatric oncologists and haematologists and paediatric intensive care physicians to work together. What are the current tools to guide their discussion and decision? There are few useful published studies about the outcome of oncology paediatric patients admitted to intensive care unit. Due to the very specificity of paediatric oncology it is difficult to extrapolate from the available adult studies. Legislative texts specify the limits of the debate but feed it little. Philosophers concentrate on the risk of therapeutic doggedness and the right to dye with dignity. The oncology paediatric patients may be sent to an intensive care unit at different steps of their diseases: at the time of diagnosis, during the curative treatment, or after treatment failure. For each step, there is a need for a wide debate between oncologists, intensivists, nurses, psychologists, and the child's family in order to define the most consensual decisions. The development of validated prognostic scores for this particular population will be very helpful for the decision making. As frequently as possible the decision should be anticipated before the transfer of the child to the intensive care unit.