On Wednesday, 6th December, SIOPE was delighted to take part in a webinar launching the new topic on Childhood Cancer within the European Cancer Inequalities Registry (ECIR) organised by the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC). The ECIR is a flagship initiative of Europe's Beating Cancer Plan, aiming to provide data on cancer prevention and care by identifying trends and inequalities between Member States and regions. Their latest publication is a factsheet detailing the inequalities in care and research in childhood cancer across Europe.
The factsheet provides a synopsis of the inequalities in childhood cancers prevalent across Europe, including:
- geographical and age-related inequalities in cancer incidence, mortality and survival,
- inequalities in access to essential medicines,
- inequalities in availability of clinical trials.
The factsheet also outlines the proposed solutions for tackling these inequalities, including a description of actions taking place under the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and EU Cancer Mission and their role in improving childhood cancer diagnosis, care and survivorship support.
SIOPE representatives presented during the webinar, with a focus on the topic “Bridging the inequality gaps for childhood cancer”. The work done by SIOPE on the Organisation of Care & rEsearch for children with cANcer in Europe project (OCEAN) were outlined, namely the evidence of the mapped inequalities in the organisation of care and research in Europe.
The published factsheet, including details of the above findings, is available here.
