March 2021

March is here, with Spring just around the corner.
As the latest wave of the pandemic is easing, let us pause, reflect and take stock of the last year.
So much has happened, so much has changed. In the world and no doubt, in everyone's personal life.
Let us also look ahead with hope, and be kind to one another as always!

Last week, I enjoyed taking part in a virtual conference - so I thought I'd share the experience.

Children's Cancer and Leukaemia Group
2021 Winter Meeting​

​Davide Paccagnella, ST4

When I was initially given the opportunity to present an abstract at the CCLG Winter Meeting, I thought I would stick to my presentation and not necessarily take part in the meeting.
After all, despite my interest in Haematology/Oncology, I was not sure about how accessible or useful it would be for my stage of training.

Then, after managing to get some study leave, and having had the costs kindly covered by my department, I decided I would tune in, and try to keep up with it. Which I think I did. But most importantly, whenever there was a term I would not understand, I'd look it up. And after having opened at least 15 tabs on my laptop, I felt my Haematology/Oncology knowledge MUST have improved a little.

​Being a national conference, there was a wide variety of speakers.
And I had a chance to familiarise myself with a number of organisations I'd only heard of - without understanding what they really do - until now.

For example, the Cancer Research UK clinical trials unit, where people have been working incessantly to cope with the challenges created by Brexit. Good news it, they are still able to sponsor and coordinate trials in EU countries. 
I felt inspired by their hard work and their commitment to improving children's lives. 
It's worth checking out their site:
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/crctu/index.aspx


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​The National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Children's group strives to develop and maintain a research portfolio. To get an idea of the impact COVID has had on recruitment, only around 1000 patients have been enrolled into trials over the past year, versus an average of 3000/year in previous years. It has also been much harder to get funding, with a need to become more "competitive" in order to get it. 
I'm sure many of us have felt this on their own skin, or know of somebody who has struggled to get research going.
Some may argue this is fair enough, in the middle of a pandemic. But this trend needs to be reversed as soon as possible, so that children (and adults for that matter!) with cancer are able to continue accessing effective treatments.
Take a look: https://www.ncri.org.uk/groups/childrens-group/ 

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SIOP Europe (the European Society for Paediatric Oncology) has representation in 36 countries, and is doing amazing work on ensuring equal access to medicines across Europe. I was a little shocked to hear that, across Europe, up to 27% of orally administered medicines are never available in child-friendly formulations. The 27% refers to the list of "essential medicines" compiled by the World Health Organisation. 
In a globalised economy, we should be doing better than that!

But on the positive side, it was good to hear that the Horizon Europe programme (research and innovation framework programme running from 2021-2027) is still accessible by the UK under the Brexit deal. 

Ultimately, deals aside, it is essential that we all lobby the UK government to ensure the same standard of research and innovation as other EU countries.

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