Julie Torode

Union for International Cancer Control | UICC

Cancer prevention and control services worldwide must actively rebuild and contribute to improved health systems resilience alongside and beyond the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus disease) pandemic, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Cancer advocacy groups should respond to this unprecedented challenge as an opportunity to bolster co...

(Abstracted from Prev Med 2021;144:106313) Cervical cancer is a preventable disease that continues to have an annual incidence of nearly 600,000 cases with disproportionate disease burden and death occurring in marginalized populations and low- and middle-income countries. Evidence suggests that elimination of cervical cancer as a public health pro...

PURPOSE To enable design of optimum palliative care for women with cervical cancer, we studied the most common types of suffering and their severity, prevalence, and duration. METHODS We first reviewed the literature on the major types, severity, prevalence, and duration of suffering associated with cervical cancer. We then conducted a modified De...

Cervical cancer, caused by HPV infection, is responsible for more than 311 000 preventable deaths every year. A global call to accelerate efforts to eliminate this disease has generated a new global strategy proposing ambitious, but achievable, targets for HPV vaccination of girls, and screening and treatment of women. The present paper addresses t...

Background and objectives: The 57 countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) are experiencing rapid increases in their burden of cancer. The First Ladies Against Cancer meeting at the 2016 OIC meeting in Istanbul committed to the importance of cancer control and the need for more evidence to support national cancer control planning...

PurposeTo identify key factors for the best practice of knowledge transfer from high-income settings to low- and middle-income settings.ResultsInteractive sessions led to the identification of European learnings that can and should be shared beyond Europe. Furthermore, methods were characterised which may lead to successful knowledge transfer with...

Background: WHO is developing a global strategy towards eliminating cervical cancer as a public health problem, which proposes an elimination threshold of four cases per 100 000 women and includes 2030 triple-intervention coverage targets for scale-up of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to 90%, twice-lifetime cervical screening to 70%, and t...

This is a summary of the presentations addressing approaches and achievements to reach the goal of eliminating cervical cancer as a global public health problem that were delivered at the 7th Annual Symposium on Global Cancer Research at the 10th Annual Consortium of Universities for Global Health Meeting in March 2019. Dr Princess Nothemba Simelel...

Disease burden is the most important determinant of survival in patients with cancer. This domain, reflected by the cancer stage and codified using the tumour-node-metastasis (TNM) classification, is a fundamental determinant of prognosis. Accurate and consistent tumour classification is required for the development and use of treatment guidelines...

Purpose To identify key factors for successful integration of translational science into cancer care. Results Organisation of the health care system matters to optimally bridge between public and private cancer research, cancer registries and routine care. Currently, there are deficits on various levels of connectivity. These hamper rapid and opti...

Cancer is a global public health concern with 14 million new cases and 8 million deaths per year. About 52% of new cancer cases and 59% of 8.2 million deaths in the world occur in OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) countries. For many years cancer were not listed among the health priorities around the globe. The increasing rates in terms of...

The central principle of “balance” represents the dual obligation of governments to establish a system of control that ensures the adequate availability of controlled substances for medical and scientific purposes while simultaneously preventing their nonmedical use, diversion, and trafficking, two primary goals of the international control system....

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide, affecting > 1.6 million women each year, projected to increase to 2.2 million cases annually by 2025. A disproportionate number of the > 500,000 women who die as a result of breast cancer each year reside in low-resource settings. Breast cancer control is an important component of cancer c...

There is increasing global recognition that national cancer plans are crucial to effectively address the cancer burden and to prioritise and coordinate programmes. We did a global analysis of available national cancer-related health plans using a standardised assessment questionnaire to assess their inclusion of elements that characterise an effect...

Purpose The global burden of cancer is slated to reach 21.4 million new cases in 2030 alone, and the majority of those cases occur in under-resourced settings. Formidable changes to health care delivery systems must occur to meet this demand. Although significant policy advances have been made and documented at the international level, less is know...

Purpose: National Cancer Control Plans (NCCPs) often describe structural requirements for high quality cancer care. During the fourth European Roundtable Meeting (ERTM) participants shared learnings from their own national setting to formulate best practice in optimizing communication strategies between parties involved in clinical cancer registri...

Background: The availability and affordability of safe, effective, high-quality, affordable anti-cancer therapies are a core requirement for effective national cancer control plans. Method: Online survey based on a previously validated approach. The aims of the study were to evaluate: 1) the availability on national formulary of licensed anti-ne...

Both human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and screening/treatment are relatively simple and inexpensive to implement at all resource levels, and cervical cancer screening has been acknowledged as a "best buy" by the WHO. However, coverage with these interventions is low where they are needed most. Failure to launch or expand cervical cancer preve...

Despite a rising burden of cancer among children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), few efforts to develop system-wide strategies to combat childhood cancer exist. Such efforts are hampered both by gaps in research evidence and by weak links among stakeholders spanning the trajectory from research and care to policy. Deliberative dialogue...

Most children with cancer live and die in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Medical and health system advances have brought cure to more than 80% of children with cancer in high-income countries (HICs),1 but such advances have eluded children in most LMICs, where inequities can yield cure percentages anywhere from 5% to 60%. Multiple...

Background The management of cancer is predicated on the availability and affordability of anticancer therapies, which may be either curative or noncurative. Aim The primary aims of the study were to evaluate (i) the formulary availability of licensed antineoplastic medicines across Europe; (ii) patient out-of-pocket costs for the medications and...

4 Background In 2013, there were more than 8 million deaths attributed to cancer, and nearly 15 million new cancer cases worldwide. The majority of this burden falls on countries that are often already triply burdened by infectious diseases, under-resourced systems, and inadequate numbers of health professionals. Access to medicines is a critical...

Purpose: It is widely accepted that National Cancer Control Plans (NCCPs) are essential to improve cancer care. They often describe the structural requirements such as cancer centers, clinical cancer registries and quality control. During the 2nd European roundtable meeting, the implementation processes were analyzed and discussed. Results: Comm...

Population-based cancer registries generate estimates of incidence and survival that are essential for cancer surveillance, research, and control strategies. Although data on cancer stage allow meaningful assessments of changes in cancer incidence and outcomes, stage is not recorded by most population-based cancer registries. The main method of sta...

Purpose: A great proportion of the world's cancer burden resides in low- and middle-income countries where cancer care infrastructure is often weak or absent. Although treatment of cancer is multidisciplinary, involving surgery, radiation, systemic therapies, pathology, radiology, and other specialties, selection of medicines that have impact and...

Radiotherapy is a critical and inseparable component of comprehensive cancer treatment and care. For many of the most common cancers in low-income and middle-income countries, radiotherapy is essential for effective treatment. In high-income countries, radiotherapy is used in more than half of all cases of cancer to cure localised disease, palliate...

Bringing the knowledge and expertise of different European countries and the European Commission together for an analysis of the different factors being beneficent or rather opposing for high quality in cancer care. A specific focus is set on the structures and views in European nations on implementation processes. Due to the variation of National...

With the adoption of the NCD Framework, including the WHO Global Action Plan 2013-2020, governments have committed to reduce premature deaths from NCDs by 25% by 2025. The development and implementation of national NCD Plans, including integrated cancer plans, constitutes a cornerstone to reach this target. This presents a unique opportunity to pri...

The treatment of childhood cancer is an oncology success story—survival rates have increased dramatically from 25 % for those treated in the 1960s to 80 % for those treated during the current millennium. The big remaining problem is the issue of equity of access to diagnosis, treatment, and care of children with cancer around the globe. The 5-year...

Background: Quality oncologic care is dependent on the availability of affordable anti neoplastic agents. Many patients in Europe either lack access to anticancer medication or have access but at a cost that is unaffordable to many persons. Methodology: The ESMO study on the availability and accessibility of anti-neoplastic medicines in Europe is a...

Cancer research in Africa will have a pivotal role in cancer control planning in this continent. However, environments (such as those in academic or clinical settings) with limited research infrastructure (laboratories, biorespositories, databases) coupled with inadequate funding and other resources have hampered African scientists from carrying ou...

The nations of the Caribbean, Central America and South America form a heterogeneous region with substantial variability in economic, social and palliative care development. Palliative care provision is at varied stages of development throughout the region. The consumption of opioids in Latin America and the Caribbean is variable with moderate leve...

Opioid analgesics are critical to the effective relief of cancer pain. Effective treatment is predicated on sound assessments, individually tailored analgesic therapy, and the availability and accessibility of the required medications. In some countries, pain relief is hampered by the lack of availability or barriers to the accessibility of opioid...

The reports of the Global Opioid Policy Initiative (GOPI) project to evaluate the availability and accessibility of opioids for the management of cancer pain in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East, together with the previous 2010 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)/European Association for Palliative Care (EA...

With nearly 1.1 billion inhabitants living in more than 50 countries, Africa is the world's poorest and most socioeconomically underdeveloped continent. Despite some advances for individual states, many African countries have very low opioid consumption and, overall, the continent has the lowest consumption per capita of any in the world. This arti...

India is the world's largest democracy with control of opioids divided between the national and state governments. While the global consumption of opioids has increased, the consumption has not increased at the same rate. This is the first comprehensive study of opioid availability and accessibility for cancer patients in India. Data are reported o...

The UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in September, 2011, is an unprecedented opportunity to create a sustained global movement against premature death and preventable morbidity and disability from NCDs, mainly heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease. The increasing global crisis in NCDs is a...

The UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in September, 2011, is an unprecedented opportunity to create a sustained global movement against premature death and preventable morbidity and disability from NCDs, mainly heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease. The increasing global crisis in NCDs is a...

To the Editor, Austin and Zhao[1] raise accusations of anticytology bias and conflict of interest in the cervical cancer screening study published by Sankaranarayanan et al.,[2] which was very surprising as these were a repetition of the same previously published (and refuted) charges. The authors note that “questions have been raised” about the A...

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is considered to be a viable drug target in a variety of solid tumors. The clinical benefit and safety of the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor gefitinib ('Iressa')1 was evaluated in this Phase II, multicentre study of patients with taxane and anthracycline pretreated, metastatic breast cancer. Gefitinib (500 mg...

Despite new therapies and several treatment options, metastatic breast cancer (MBC) remains incurable. One reason for the low median survival rate may be intense cross-talk between growth factor receptors such as the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR/HER1) and the HER2 growth factor receptor. This report describes the case history of a patient...