“Better survival is also #nelletuemani” the slogan chosen for 2022. Today 80% of children in Italy definitively overcome the disease, but appropriate treatments are needed, at the right times and with specialized doctors
Every year in the world over 300 thousand children and adolescents receive a diagnosis of cancer: there are about 60 different subtypes of tumors that affect the youngest and in Italy there are more or less 1,500 diagnoses per year in the age group 0-14 years and 900 in that adolescent, between 15 and 19 years. Although healings are on the rise in our country, much remains to be done to improve early diagnosis and treatment in many countries, especially in developing countries. Furthermore, it is necessary to encourage and support scientific research in order to develop effective therapies even in those forms of cancer that still remain difficult to treat. Precisely to raise awareness of cancer in children, the International Day dedicated to Pediatric Cancer is celebrated every year on February 15.
80 percent recover, but more can be done
Thirty years ago only two out of 10 children survived a cancer diagnosis, today over 80 percent of them recover in our country (with peaks of 90% for leukemia and lymphomas, which are among the most common diseases in this country. age group), but neoplasms still represent the leading cause of death from pediatric disease in industrialized countries, second only to accidents. This is why at the center of the campaign for 2022, with the slogan “a better survival is also #nelletuemani”, there is the participation of everyone as the key to success to be able to heal and treat all children who get cancer in the best possible way. : we need appropriate care, with the right times and with specialized doctors. “To improve both the survival and the quality of life of young sick people, some urgent issues must be addressed, such as the possibility of access for children to new drugs (which are rarely tested and approved in forms and dosages appropriate to them) and the scarcity of trials targeted on pediatric pathologies – recalls Franca Fagioli, Director of the Pediatric Oncohematology Department and Transplant Center of the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital in Turin, member of the Scientific Committee of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation and of the Fieop Board of Directors -. To which are added important issues to monitor and protect the health of the many who leave the disease behind and to guarantee their right to fully return to civil society, without having to be penalized, once adults, at a bureaucratic or working level for the previous diagnosis of neoplasm “.
The “Gold for Kids” project of the Veronesi Foundation
It is precisely with this in mind that the Umberto Veronesi Foundation launched the Gold for Kids project in 2014, to support medical treatment and research on childhood cancer and promote correct scientific information. The project is carried out in synergy with the Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (AIEOP) and its Foundation (Fieop). “Our goal is to maximize the chances of recovery and improve the quality of life of children and young people who get cancer – underlines Paolo Veronesi, President of the Foundation -. We finance research and the best medical care for young cancer patients through activation of treatment protocols; we carry out information and dissemination activities on the subject of cancer in children and young people, with particular attention to young people and schools; we implement initiatives to sensitize public opinion and the competent institutions on the needs of adolescents with cancer ». Since the start of the project, born in 2014, almost 10 million euros have been collected and invested, thanks to which it has been possible to finance the work of 144 researchers and the opening of treatment protocols aimed at various childhood diseases (neuroblastoma, leukemia acute myeloid, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, ependymoma, medulloblastoma, sarcomas).
To take care of and follow all children in the best possible way
Furthermore, the Umberto Veronesi Foundation supported the “Passport of the healed” project, that is the development of a multilingual digital platform to archive the data of former pediatric cancer patients, in order to help them manage any future complications related to the anticancer treatments received. “Thanks to financial support that the Foundation has provided us in recent years we have managed to treat thousands of Italian children in the best possible way – concludes Arcangelo Prete, President of AIEOP -. Being able to include every little patient who falls ill in a treatment protocol, the same for all of Italy, means guaranteeing him the best assistance for his specific case. Protocols are very important: they provide operational guidelines to take charge and treat each patient, according to the highest and most innovative standards, thus ensuring the best chances of recovery. As the theme chosen for the International Day 2022 reminds us, early diagnoses are indispensable, which allow us to discover the disease when the chances of definitively recovering are greater. And access to the most suitable therapies and to centers where multidisciplinary groups of various specialized experts are present are equally fundamental to provide children and adolescents, and their families, with everything they need “.
February 14, 2022 (change February 14, 2022 | 10:18)
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