Through the PARC Programme aiming to bolster paediatric oncology clinical research infrastructure in low income countries (LICs) and middle income countries (MICs), SIOP is enhancing the capacity for research-informed treatment to improve the care and cure of children with cancer. With funds from Amazon and Foundation S, the PARC Committee, headed by Dr. Guillermo Chantada (SIOP President), has identified several cooperative groups to receive grant support for capacity development work. In Asia, the support goes to the Indian Pediatric Hematology Oncology Group (INPHOG)/CanKids-KidsCan India.
The Indian paediatric oncology community has conducted 24 collaborative studies since 2015. In order to provide impetus to this, the aim is to focus on building manpower and capacity in 50 centres and initiating six prospective studies in the next 2 years (Feb 2023 – Feb 2025). This would also result in doubling the number of all children with cancer who are currently enrolled onto multicentre collaborative studies (observational and interventional) which would represent approximately 10% of all children with cancer who are diagnosed and treated every year in India.
The support from the SIOP PARC Programme for this two-year period will be used for:
- Create a uniform paediatric cancer dataset for paediatric-specific hospital-based cancer registry and train the staff in data capture and entry and thereby build research capacity in 50 identified institutions.
- Have frontline prospective interventional studies open for six WHO GICC index cancers.
- Create a taskforce of representative of civil society organization (CSOs) to provide the voice of the patient and carer in setting research priorities, conduct of studies, patient engagement and knowledge translation in policy and practice.