News from SIOP Europe AYA Committee

30/01/2023

 

Over the last 20 years, survival of adolescent – young adult (AYA) oncology patients in high-income countries has significantly increased due to intense multimodal treatment strategies, improved supportive care, and centralisation of AYA care. However, prognosis for a subset of patients with high-risk, relapsed, and refractory cancers remains poor, and survivors (now approx. 85%) are facing chronic late side-effects.  Essentially, cure comes at a cost stressing the urgent need for innovative treatment approaches.

Some large-scale genomic studies including next generation sequencing (NGS) have provided insights into the genomic landscape of AYA cancer, which enables improving outcomes through molecularly matched treatments. Multiple prospective precision-medicine programmes have reported the feasibility of NGS in a clinical setting in a relevant timeframe and reveal actionable genetic variants that justify the development of predictive bio-marker driven trials for childhood cancer. Large-scale programmes have included: (1) the international INFORM registry including 13 countries, (2) MAPPYACTS (France), (3) SM-PAEDS (UK), (4) the US-based NCI-COG Pediatric MATCH trial and (5) the Australian Zero Childhood Programme.

The AYA Genomic session at SIOPE, Valencia, May 2023 will discuss  the feasibility and clinical value of whole genome sequencing for AYA from cancer diagnostics to cancer predisposition.

The SIOP Europe AYA Committee provides strategic and direction-forming input into existing networks and groups such as ENTAC and the ESMO SIOPE AYA Working Group. It liaises with professional and patient organisations to bring AYA issues onto the political agenda. For recent publications and more information, we invite you to visit: https://siope.eu/siop-europe-aya-committee/