SIOP PODC (9 Working Groups and 5 Task Forces) has a new in-coming co-Chair, Sandra Luna-Fineman, MD, who will take office in October at the 49th SIOP Congress in Washington, DC.

Please see our PODC webpage for more information on the particulars of each group.

We are happy to announce that we have a full program for Washington, DC in October 2017.

  • PODC Education Day, Thursday Oct. 12, themes for the free pre-conference are
    • Free Papers (Best of PODC)
    • L&MIC Radiation Oncology Symposium
    • Selected Papers (Best of the Continents)
    • Supportive Care Symposium – PODC Supportive Care WG together with SIOP Supportive Care Committee.
  • Day +3, Sunday Oct. 15, PODC will have two sessions:
    • Lancet Oncology:  Highlights of the Commission on Childhood Cancer
    • PODC Twinning, Collaboration & Support Working Group: How do we Monitor and Evaluate?

 

Saturday Oct 14 from 1430-1600

SIOP Continental President for Oceania, Michael Sullivan will also lead the Advocacy Symposium: Global Childhood Cancer Agenda: Oceania Childhood Cancer Care Initiatives ​​Exemplar

Sunday Oct. 15 from 0800-0930

SIOP PODC Essential Medicines Working Group will be holding a symposium, SIOP-PODC: Global Access to Essential Medicines for Children with Cancer: Dynamics and Challenges on

Sunday Oct. 15 from 1330-1600

SIOP PODC and the Russian Federation National Society for Pediatric Hematology Oncology (NSPHO) will be holding a workshop Translation of knowledge: An NSPHO and SIOP PODC Review and Discussion the use of treatment protocols (adapted and otherwise) in low- and middle-income countries.

Please do join us for all these interactive and informative sessions.

Next, we highlight 2 SIOP PODC Working Groups, PODC Palliative Care and PODC Integrative Traditional and Complementary Medicine Task Force. If you have interest in these areas, please contact the co-Chairs of the Working Group or Task Force listed on the SIOP website.

The SIOP PODC Palliative Care Working Group develops and facilitates group efforts to address issues surrounding access, education, support, quality and outcomes with regard to palliative care for children with cancer globally, but particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). We foster multidisciplinary partnerships involving research, advocacy, capacity building and educational efforts to address this goal in diverse settings. This group creates and circulates access to core publications, working documents, and online resources relevant to pediatric palliative services in LMIC. Our goal is to make known the efforts of palliative projects, teams and initiatives made in LMIC with the aim of sharing these experiences and promoting their replication in other restricted-resources countries by adapting the human, logistical and pharmacological resources.

The SIOP PODC Traditional & Complementary Medicine (T&CM) Task Force was formed in 2014, with the goal of providing guidance on harmonization of care between conventional pediatric oncology care and traditional and complementary medicine practices globally. In accordance with the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy and the UN Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples, supporting safe and effective use of T&CM along with conventional cancer care may reduce treatment refusals and abandonment. To achieve this aim we have embarked on several projects. We demonstrated that T&CM is used worldwide, with rates of use higher in low and middle income countries (LMIC 66.7% ± 19%) than high income countries (HIC 47.2% ± 20%), and that families only disclose use of T&CM to their cancer teams between 21-45% of the time. We published these findings in the Journal of Global Oncologyhttp://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/JGO.2016.005587. We have also reviewed the evidence for use of T&CM agents for curative intent, which is published in Pediatric Blood & Cancerhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pbc.26501/full, and for supportive care (pending publication). A summary of these findings and our goals for the future will be published in an upcoming special edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. We are also embarking on a continental assessment of T&CM use in Africa. If you are interested in our work, or joining our efforts, please check out our SIOP page: http://siop-online.org/psycho-social-task-force/, and join us on Cure4Kids https://www.cure4kids.org/ums/home/groups/detail/?groups_id=579!

On behalf of the PODC committee,

LOC Chair 2015_Alan Davidson_smaller Alan Davidson (PODC co-chair)

PODC_Julia head shot 2015 Julia Challinor (PODC co-chair)