1. Essential Medicines for children with cancer
2. The SIOPE Early Career CTG Involvement (ECCTGI) project
3. The education project: the art of sharing knowledge
4. The PCDC data commons project
1. Essential Medicines for children with cancer
Coordinating on behalf of Young SIOPE: Eva Brack and Maria Otth
In collaboration with the Essential Medicines Steering Committee and the SIOPE European Clinical Trial Groups​
The 7th WHO Model List of Essential Medicines for Children (EMLc) was just published in July 2019. This document also incorporates a section on antineoplastic drugs. The medicines listed in this section are either minimum medicines needs for a basic health-care system or essential medicines for specific diseases, for which specialized diagnostic or monitoring facilities, and/or specialist medical care, and/or specialist training are needed.
Progress
Young SIOPE members (n=36) work together since may 2019 with SIOPE Clinical Trial Groups (CTGs). Young SIOPE members were matched with 16 different tumour groups. Each tumour entity is covered by 1-2 Young SIOPE members and 1-2 mentors from CTGs (n=21). Today, 102 different European treatment protocols have been analyzed and 32 anticancer medicines have been identified in addition to the 24 on the EMLc2017 list.
The final product of this project will be presented as comprehensive and evidence-based summaries of essential anticancer medicines to treat childhood cancer by tumour entity (e.g. soft tissue sarcoma) and by anticancer medicine (e.g. melphalan) within Europe. These summaries will help physicians, policy makers, and parents and patients advocacy groups to make these medicines available for all children across Europe at all times.
An abstract of the current progress was submitted for the SIOP 2020 conference.
Timeline
April 2020 Abstract for SIOP 2020 Ottawa submitted
May 2020 Progress meeting
August 2020 Final output by each working group
2. The SIOPE Early Career CTG Involvement (ECCTGI) project
Coordinating on behalf of Young SIOPE: Erika Pace and Nicolas Herold
Involved Young SIOPE Members: Emma Seaford, Teresa Perillo, Valeria Simone
This Early Career Involvement project for Young SIOPE members aims to provide the opportunity for junior colleagues to become engaged in the European Clinical Trial Groups (ECTGs) and, with support of the ECTG community, to train and educate future ECTG members. ECTGs will hopefully benefit from the diversity of the pan-European background of Young SIOPE members and from their early-career “out-of-the-box-thinking” approach. Many ECTGs within SIOPE are already engaged in supporting the early career development of young professionals and for this reason it is now very timely to launch a strong and effective SIOPE Early Career CTG Involvement (ECCTGI) project.
Long-term commitment (i.e. at least 3-5 years, but ideally for an indeterminate future) is expected from the Young SIOPE members participating in this project. To allow Young SIOPE members grow and accelerate, it is essential to start with achievable objective goals or projects. The key element for this project to be successful will be mutual engagement between young members and experienced members of the paediatric cancer community, in other words: mentorship.
Progress
At the SIOP 2019 meeting, we had the opportunity to meet with Adam Esbenshade and Girish Dhall. Through collaboration with them and learning about the RedCap platform we will be able to match mentee - mentors, set out objectives of the involvement, to monitor progress and to evaluate by individualized questionnaires. The project is officially approved by the SIOPE board and the European Clinical Trial groups. Currently documents have been circulated and work is done to fill in ECTG liaison positions before the official launch of this project.
Timeline
Aim 2020: official launch of the ECCTGI project
3. The education project: the art of sharing knowledge
Coordinating on behalf of Young SIOPE: Teresa de Rojas and Roelof van Ewijk
Involved Young SIOPE Members: Rubio San Simon Alba, Giacomo Gotti, Paula Perez, Daniela di Carlo, Petra Franková, Maria Kourti
Subproject 1. SIOP Europe Paediatric Oncology Course
Andishe Attarbashi, board member of SIOPE, and Reineke Schoot are the initiators of the SIOPE course in paediatric haemato-oncology. The aim is to develop an innovative course wherein attendees actively participate at yearly meetings, over a 3 year time period. The content and set-up of the course will include innovative learning strategies and state-of-the-art education adding to, not replacing, current oncology training courses.
Progress
Roelof van Ewijk and Reineke Schoot joined the working group of experienced oncologist and collaboratively outlined the program and logistic organisation of this SIOPE Paediatric Oncology course. The course will cover clinical aspects of childhood cancer, clinical research methods, research collaborations, statistical analysis, presentation skills and leadership. Real-life cases and situations will be discussed, as well as patient management and how to perform clinical studies.
The Course will be held over 3 years, consisting of an annual module of 4 days, to stimulate long-term educational impact and group development. Attendees will obtain the skills and expertise to become leading physicians, performing high-quality patient management and research.
Timeline
Course application submission opens: 1 May 2020
Application submission closes: 15 September 2020
2021: 1st SIOPE Europe Paediatric Oncology Course
Subproject 2. SIOP Europe meeting organisation
Yearly, at the SIOP Europe conference, we will organize multiple collaborative meetings. We organize educational meetings in collaboration with European Clinical Trial Groups, Parent Groups and other groups with common interesting topics. Next to that, we organize an official meeting with the Young SIOPE members to update on the progress of the Young SIOPE group and to discuss developments. To improve collaboration, get to know new Young SIOPE members for future collaboration, we organise a yearly social event.
Progress
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the 2020 SIOP Europe conference was cancelled. Currently we are looking to new ways to reach out to the Young SIOPE members to evaluate the progress of the group and see whether educational sessions can find a new format online, as a webinar.
4. The PCDC data commons project
Coordinating on behalf of Young SIOPE: Reineke Schoot and Roelof van Ewijk
Involved Young SIOPE members: To be involved
The PCDC brings together clinical data from institutions around the world. Headquartered at the University of Chicago, the PCDC works with international leaders in paediatric cancers and the United States’ National Cancer Institute to develop and apply uniform clinical data standards that facilitate the collection, combination, and analysis of clinical paediatric cancer data. By harmonizing existing data and leading international efforts to standardize clinical data collection, the PCDC is making it possible to study larger sets of clinical paediatric cancer data and to connect these data with other types of data including genomic, imaging, and tissue availability data.
The aim of the project is to reimagine the clinical data life cycle creating new opportunities to accelerate paediatric cancer research and work toward cures.
Progress
On June 3 Young SIOPE members joined the PCDC data commons webinar. Further steps towards active involvement of our Young SIOPE members are currently discussed. We aim to update you on short notice. If you are willing to be actively involved in this project please let us know.