7 important updates for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

September is childhood cancer awareness month.

The campaign aims to highlight the types of cancer that primarily affect children, draw attention to survival issues, and raise funds for research and support for families.

Along with this celebration, Healio presents the following updates in Pediatric Oncology that may be important to your practice.

1. Age and ethnicity appeared to be associated with inadequate follow-up care in young adult childhood cancer survivors. Read more.
2. RadFlix, a form of ‘distraction therapy’, allows children to watch movies or TV shows while they are undergoing radiation therapy. Read more.
3. Young children with brain tumors experienced cognitive difficulties prior to adjuvant therapy, with those of a younger age at diagnosis and lower socioeconomic status being most at risk. Read more.
4. Genetic alterations of ALK, including clonal mutations and amplifications, in high-risk neuroblastoma have been shown to be useful as independent predictors of poorer survival. Read more.
5. Healio spoke with oncologists, endocrinologists, and otolaryngologists about the potential factors behind this growing incidence of pediatric thyroid cancer, whether thyroid cancers are overdiagnosed in children and how future research aims to better characterize pediatric thyroid cancers compared to those occurring in adults. Read more.
6. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia retained its distinction as the No. 1 children’s hospital for cancer in the country. The institution in mind American News and World Reportlist of the best hospitals for pediatric cancer for 2021-2022. Read more.
7. Switching from vincristine to brentuximab vedotin as standard first-line therapy has been shown to be safe and effective in children and adolescents with high-risk classical Hodgkin lymphoma. Read more.