Message from the President and the Office

15/06/2016

Martin Schrappe

_97A9110As the summer months approach, our Society prepares for an autumn full of important appointments. It is my pleasure to announce our next policy event at the European Parliament on 7 September 2016, in collaboration with Cancer Research UK and, for the second time, with the MEPs Against Cancer (MAC) group of the Parliament (see article in this newsletter). Participants to this Conference will suggest important amendments to the EU Regulation on Paediatric Medicines, in order to give more and better chances of cure to our young patients. For the first time, SIOPE will also be present with a booth at the ESMO meeting in Copenhagen (7-11 October 2016), to mark the multidisciplinary collaboration project we started with medical oncologists  two years ago to jointly tackle the specificities of cancer in adolescents and young adults. In October we will also hold our Annual General Assembly, in association with the SIOP Congress in Dublin (20 October 2016, 12h50-13h50, see article in this newsletter). I would really encourage all of you, dear SIOPE members, to take part in this unique forum: our Board needs your precious input as concerns several initiatives which could have an impact on our profession, our research studies and on the way the families of your patients will find the best possible treatment. As getting involved at the European level is one of the main reasons why you became a member of our Society, attending the SIOPE General Assembly 2016 is for sure the first step in this direction. I would like to drive your attention to the last, but not least, key event taking place in the months ahead: the SIOPE Society Day on 27 January 2017, the first day of the European Cancer Congress. This is the first time that our European Society organises a stand-alone meeting presenting a highly innovative programme for its community of childhood cancer professionals. We decided to give it an educational focus, by illustrating all the latest discoveries and state-of-the art research results in paediatric oncology from our disease-specific clinical trial groups in our region. The second part of this one-day event will provide you with a few high-level sessions on EU health and research policies which could be instrumental for putting into practice our community’s Strategic Plan. We are very excited about this Society Day, and we will build an outstanding programme which will meet your expectations. You will discover in this newsletter all the countless initiatives we have been working on in the past months, which will facilitate and bring us a step closer to the implementation of the SIOPE Strategic Plan, our priority. For instance, a few SIOPE representatives just met the European Health Commissioner to urge action as concerns the need for innovative treatments in our field, and we successfully organised in Brussels the PanCareSurFup European Conference for Childhood Cancer Survivors, crucial to ensure the best possible follow-up and quality of life to former patients. The launch of the innovative QUARTET project on radiotherapy quality assurance, and the upcoming kick off meeting of the SIOPE Clinical Research Council are other important achievements which we will detail here in this issue. Therefore… have a good reading and a relaxing summer.