Time to establish multidisciplinary childhood cancer survivorship programs in Korea

Improved treatment strategies and better supportive care have resulted in increased survival rates for childhood cancers. However, most of the survivors may have complex, long-term health issues. In 2004, Childhood Cancer Survivorship Study of the United States confirmed that both survivors and the medical community need to be educated about the late effects of childhood cancer treatment. Korea, with an estimated number of childhood cancer survivors of 20,000 to 25,000, faces similar challenges that the United States had experienced earlier. Despite of the tight budgetary situation on the part of government and hospitals, nationwide cohort study for Korean childhood cancer survivors was proposed and the versions of instruments to measure the quality of life of childhood cancer survivors were already validated. Nationwide registry of long-term survivors as well as the multi-center study is to be developed not only for the care of the survivors but also to raise the patient's awareness of the importance of regular follow-up. In addition to education of primary care providers regarding the survivorship, the need for special education program in the school system is emphasized

Survival among children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in the United States, by race and age, 2001 to 2009: Findings from the CONCORD-2 study.

BACKGROUND: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood malignancy. This report describes the survival of children with ALL in the United States using the most comprehensive and up-to-date cancer registry data. METHODS: Data from 37 state cancer registries that cover approximately 80% of the US population were used. Age-standardized survival up to 5 years was estimated for children aged 0-14 years who were diagnosed with ALL during 2 periods (2001-2003 and 2004-2009). RESULTS: In total, 17,500 children with ALL were included. The pooled age-standardized net survival estimates for all US registries combined were 95% at 1 year, 90% at 3 years, and 86% at 5 years for children diagnosed during 2001-2003, and 96%, 91%, and 88%, respectively, for those diagnosed during 2004-2009. Black children who were diagnosed during 2001-2003 had lower 5-year survival (84%) than white children (87%) and had less improvement in survival by 2004-2009. For those diagnosed during 2004-2009, the 1-year and 5-year survival estimates were 96% and 89%, respectively, for white children and 96% and 84%, respectively, for black children. During 2004-2009, survival was highest among children aged 1 to 4 years (95%) and lowest among children aged <1 year (60%). CONCLUSIONS: The current results indicate that overall net survival from childhood ALL in the United States is high, but disparities by race still exist, especially beyond the first year after diagnosis. Clinical and public health strategies are needed to improve health care access, clinical trial enrollment, treatment, and survivorship care for children with ALL. Cancer 2017;123:5178-89. Published 2017. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA

Psychological Research in Childhood Cancer: The Children’s Oncology Group Perspective

Objective To review benefits and barriers to psychological research on childhood cancer in multidisciplinary, multicenter clinical-trial cooperative groups and identify opportunities for research activities in the coming decade. Methods Review of progress of cooperative-group research in the Children’s Oncology Group and legacy groups and the contribution of psychological research to this effort. Results Multidisciplinary, multicenter clinical-trial cooperative groups offer opportunities for psychological research that may be impossible at local institutions. Benefits include collaboration with other disciplines, access to adequate numbers of participants, shared research infrastructure, and access to longitudinal cohorts. Barriers include cost, standardization and quality control, competition for limited resources, and authorship and publication challenges. Conclusions The inclusion of psychological research as a task of the multidisciplinary cooperative group contributes to a transdisciplinary science focused on cure of childhood cancer followed by optimal quality of survivorship. The focus of this research for the next decade should be on the development of intervention studies that address acute problems, lessen the impact of late effects of treatment, and ultimately prevent these effects by better diagnostic classification and targeted treatment. This focus should ultimately lead to translation of intervention research findings to standard of care in the larger childhood cancer community