Dear SIOP Members,
Yesterday, the SIOP Board of Directors approved the creation of the SIOP Survivorship Network.
Survivorship care in some parts of the world, especially in low and middle income countries (LMICs), considerably lags behind. The focus on active treatment, the lack of additional resources needed for specialized care, and unfavorable health care systems and policies within LMICs represent major barriers to implementation of survivorship care. There is emerging data that the profile of late effects and priorities for survivorship care in LMICs are different from those published from Europe and North America. Most centres in LMICs continue to experience exceptional challenges in providing risk-based care and lack rehabilitation expertise. Barring a few exceptions, relatively little research has been published about late effects or survivorship care from LMICs.
There are multiple ongoing global initiatives and platforms, which address the social, psychological and life-rehabilitation issues. However, there is felt a need to have a platform for discussing, promoting and collaborating on the medical aspects of late effects, survivorship and long-term follow-up. The SIOP Board approved the establishment of the SIOP Survivorship Network to address these needs.
The SIOP Survivorship Network aims to build a global network of interested healthcare professionals, address relevant issues across all resource settings and foster the development of resource-adapted, sustainable survivorship care, and will align with SIOP Strategy by:
- Promoting global awareness on survivorship after childhood cancer.
- Providing easy access to information about long-term follow-up guidelines applicable across all resource settings.
- Providing mentorship in establishing and expanding survivorship clinics to interested SIOP members.
- Conducting webinars and other educational initiatives on the practical aspects of establishing and expanding survivorship care.
- Fostering global survivorship research across all resource settings.
- Collaborating with international groups involved in survivorship care and research, as well as with other SIOP Networks and Working Groups.
- Increasing the representation of survivorship research in the SIOP Annual Congress.
Opportunities for nominations for leadership positions with this Network will be announced via the SIOP Weekly Bulletin in the coming weeks.
You can join this Network by logging into SIOP CONNECT, going to GROUPS and searching for this Network.
Warm regards,
SIOP Secretariat
