Background: Children undergoing treatment for cancer may experience a range of adverse symptoms, yet there is limited information on the symptoms they experience during radiotherapy and the potential heterogeneity among these symptoms.

Objective: This study aimed to describe the symptom profiles of children during radiotherapy, identify subgroups of children with cancer experiencing similar symptom patterns, and evaluate differences in demographic and clinical characteristics across these subgroups.

Methods: A total of 154 children were assessed using the Chinese version of the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale 10-18. Latent profile analysis was used to identify distinct subgroups of patients based on symptom occurrence profiles with a prevalence greater than 40%.

Results: Children experienced multiple adverse symptoms during radiotherapy. The best-fitting model identified 3 distinct symptom profiles: low symptom prevalence, high symptom prevalence, and high gastrointestinal symptom prevalence. Significant differences were observed among subgroups based on age, family income, demographic factors, and clinical characteristics, including treatment type, the number of patients currently receiving radiotherapy, radiotherapy site, and recent chemotherapy within the past week.

Conclusions: This study found that children experienced various adverse symptoms during radiotherapy, with notable heterogeneity in symptom profiles identified through latent profile analysis. Symptom prevalence varied according to demographic and clinical characteristics.

Implication for practice: This study highlights the need for healthcare providers to focus on different patient subgroups and provide targeted prevention and early intervention strategies for managing symptoms in children during radiotherapy.

Keywords: Latent profile analysis; Patient-reported outcomes; Pediatric oncology; Radiotherapy; Symptom clusters.

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背景：

正在接受癌症治疗的儿童可能会经历一系列不良症状，但关于他们在放疗期间经历的症状以及这些症状之间的潜在异质性的信息有限。

目标：

本研究旨在描述儿童在放疗期间的症状特征，识别具有类似症状模式的儿童亚组，并评估这些亚组之间的人口统计学和临床特征差异。

方法：

共有154名儿童接受了中国版本的纪念症状评估量表10-18的评估。使用潜在类别分析来识别基于症状发生率（大于40%）区分的不同患者亚组。

结果：

在放疗期间，儿童经历了多种不良症状。最佳拟合模型确定了三种不同的症状特征：低症状发生率、高症状发生率和高胃肠道症状发生率。各亚组之间在年龄、家庭收入、人口统计学因素以及临床特征（包括治疗类型、当前接受放疗的患者数量、放疗部位及最近一周内是否进行了化疗）方面存在显著差异。

结论：

本研究发现，儿童在接受放疗期间经历了各种不良症状，并且通过潜在类别分析确定了症状特征方面的显著异质性。不同的人口统计学和临床特征导致的症状发生率有所不同。

实践意义：

该研究表明医疗保健提供者需要关注不同的患者亚组并为管理儿童在放疗期间的不良症状制定针对性的预防及早期干预策略。

关键词：潜在类别分析；患者报告结局；儿科肿瘤学；放疗；症状群。