The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Pediatric Cancer Program at MSK Kids co-hosted a gathering in New York that brought together pediatric oncologists, public health experts, and people with lived experience of childhood cancer. The question at hand: how do we translate the enormous strides made in recent decades in survival rates for children with cancer in wealthy countries to lower-resource settings where survival rates have been markedly lower?
“It takes a village,” said Dr. Guillermo Chantada, a pediatric oncologist at Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona Hospital and President of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology, in his opening remarks. It’s this sort of village—an international network of multilateral support and exchange on delivering the best possible cancer care to children—that SNF sought to foster through a major grant to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Launched last June, the SNF Global Pediatric Cancer Program is working to improve outcomes for young patients globally by expanding clinical care expertise, educational and specialized training, and collaborative translational research.
Through the program MSK Kids, led by Dr. Andrew Kung, who also delivered opening remarks, will serve as a hub of excellence in a broad network that connects pediatric cancer centers worldwide. These include SNF grantee-partners involved in the Foundation’s Global Health Initiative (GHI): Dr. Chantada’s home institution of Sant Joan de Déu (SJD) Barcelona Children’s Hospital, King Hussein Cancer Foundation and Center in Jordan, and Yorkshire Cancer Research in the United Kingdom. The SNF Global Pediatric Cancer Program will also support the development and future provision of pediatric cancer care at the forthcoming SNF University Pediatric Hospital of Thessaloniki.
The event was timed to timed to coincide with the United Nations General Assembly, where a declaration on addressing noncommunicable diseases explicitly mentioned childhood cancer. It also fell during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, during which we were thankful for grantees like World Child Cancer working to reduce geographic disparities in childhood cancer outcomes between countries.