ImPACT Follow-up Mission to Yemen

Dr. Stuart Brown, Director of INCTR’s Palliative Care Program, PAX, participated in a ImPACT follow-up mission to Yemen from June 23-25th to discuss progress made in developing a palliative care program as part of the overall cancer control plan for Yemen. Yemen is one of the six model countries selected by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Program of Action against Cancer (PACT).

Challenge Fund Trustee’s Meeting

The second meeting of the new Board of Trustee’s of the Challenge Fund, a charity registered in the UK that will work closely with INCTR, was held on June 26th in London. Dr. Max Parkin, a well-known epidemiologist, was elected Chairman of the Board. Discussions were primarily focused on the objectives of the Trust, the present financial situation and fund raising. Mr Niblett, one of the trustees, presented a check for £2000 to be used for the treatment of Burkitt lymphoma in Africa – one of INCTR’s ongoing projects.

WHO IAEA Collaboration

INCTR was invited to participate in a meeting that included representation from WHO, IAEA PACT, the NCI and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The meeting, which took place on 2-4th July, at WHO headquarters in Geneva, was primarily directed towards discussion of a joint WHO IAEA program on cancer control. INCTR was invited to attend since it works with both WHO and PACT on cancer control projects.

Follow-up Meeting on Lymphomas in Developing Countries

During the European Association for Haematopathology meeting that took place in Bordeaux from September 20-25th further discussions were held in follow up to the Lugano Workshop on lymphomas in developing countries (see the last edition of NETWORK). The discussion topics included opportunities for epidemiological studies and the need for training and education of pathologists in developing countries. An additional meeting was held in Paris on October 10th.

11th International Conference on Malignancies in AIDS

Dr. Magrath attended a meeting on AIDS-related malignancies in Bethesda (October 6-7th) to present a lecture on Burkitt lymphoma on the 50th anniversary of Burkitt’s first paper, and also attended a meeting of the USA AIDS Malignancy Consortium (AMC) in order to initiate discussions on the possibility of collaboration between INCTR and AMC.

Pediatric Oncology Meeting

Some 35 pediatric oncologists from 12 countries assembled in Brussels from 3-6th November to discuss three topics: an international treatment study on Wilms’ tumor, collaborative studies in childhood nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) and the further development of an INCTR Handbook on supportive care for children undergoing cancer therapy. It was agreed that Dr. Bakhshi from AIIMS, New Delhi, would prepare a draft protocol for Wilms’ tumor. The group also decided to develop a questionnaire relating to the reasons for late presentation of NPC and to examine consanguinity as a risk factor for NPC. In the last two days of the meeting, participants broke up into small groups to write sections of the supportive care handbook. This is now some 70% complete. The meeting was supported by the Office of International Affairs (OIA), NCI (NPC component) and by Eli Lilly.

INCTR Breast Cancer Review Steering Committee

This committee met by teleconference on November 10th to discuss the creation of a bibliography of breast cancer studies conducted in developing countries. This project is sponsored by OIA.

Train the Trainers Workshop

INCTR’s French branch, AMCC held a “train the trainers” workshop in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Fasso from 11-15th November on palliative care. 45 doctors and head nurses from five African countries attended the workshop.

Joint EMRO-INCTR-ALSC

A meeting in Cairo took place from 15-18th December to launch the WHO Eastern-Mediterranean region cancer control strategy (which INCTR assisted in developing). Two days of the meeting were devoted to a workshop on breast cancer control (breast cancer is the commonest malignancy in the region) which INCTR organized. The report of the workshop is available on INCTR’s Cancer Control “wiki” site. The workshop was partially supported by OIA.