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Cancer in young people is rare, but it is still a major health
issue in Europe.
Each year, more than 6,000 young people in
Europe die of cancer. There are more than 300,000 European
childhood cancer survivors (in 2020, they will be nearly half
a million): two-thirds of them have some late side effects of
treatment, that are severe and impact on the daily life of half
of those affected.
Within the European Network for Cancer research in Children
and Adolescents (ENCCA), SIOPE and the European paediatric
haematology-oncology community have established a long-
term sustainable Strategic Plan
to increase the cure rate and
the quality of survivorship for children and young people with
cancer over the next ten years.
The ultimate goal is to increase
the disease- and late-effect- free survival after 10 years from
the disease, and beyond.
Executive
summary
Innovative treatments
: to introduce safe and effective innovative treatments (i.e. new
drugs, new technologies) into standard care;
Precision cancer medicine
: to use improved risk classification as well as biological
characteristics of both the tumour and patient (such as molecular and immunological
factors) to help guide decisions on which therapies to use;
Tumour biology
: to increase knowledge of tumour biology and speed up translation from
basic research to clinical care to benefit patients;
Equal access
: to bring about equal access across Europe to standard care (in both diagnosis
and treatment), expertise and clinical research;
Teenagers and Young Adults
: to address the specific needs of teenagers and young adults
(TYA), in cooperation with adult oncology;
Quality of survivorship
: to address the consequences of cancer treatment such as long-
term side effects, to better understand the genetic background/risk of an individual, and
to improve quality of life of survivors of childhood cancer;
Causes of cancer:
to understand the causes of paediatric cancers and to address
prevention wherever possible.
Seven medical and scientific objectives have been set up to achieve these goals:
THE SIOPE STRATEGIC PLAN
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From AIEOP. Credit Attilio Rossetti photographer, Italy