A world without childhood cancer

World Child Cancer is committed to global equal access to treatment and care for children with cancer. “Children must be able to survive cancer everywhere in the world,” says pediatric oncologist Professor Dr. Gertjan Kaspers (60), director of the Academy & Outreach department of the Prinses Máxima Center, which provides education and training to healthcare professionals in pediatric oncology and founder and advisor of World Child Cancer. “I once entered a Kenyan hospital room measuring 3×4 where twelve children with cancer were being treated, with three children per bed. Their situation was deplorable, and their chances of survival minimal. I want to change that because children must be able to survive cancer even in low-income countries.” “It’s a great boost,” Gertjan Kaspers says, “that the WHO has declared the fight against childhood cancer one of its goals. By 2030, at least sixty percent of children with the six most common types of cancer should survive the disease.

Gertjan Kaspers might develop calluses on his soul from all the severe forms of childhood cancer he observes, but he tries to draw inspiration from it to improve the situation of children with cancer worldwide. And that is sorely needed. In the Netherlands, eight out of ten children with cancer survive the disease, while in so-called low- and middle-income countries, eight out of ten children with cancer die prematurely. In the Netherlands, there are ten times more pediatric oncologists available per child with cancer than in Kenya.

Chimney sweepers with cancer
Less than fifty years ago, children with cancer in the Netherlands were also doomed, just like the young English chimney sweepers who, around 1775, according to the English physician Percivall Pott, developed cancer from an unhealthy working environment. When Marie and Pierre Curie discovered that radioactive elements could destroy cancer cells, they laid the foundation for radiotherapy, one of the most important cancer treatments. Since then, survival rates have increased due to research, new drugs, and innovative treatments.

Surviving childhood cancer
The World Child Cancer Foundation aims to address the inequality in the global treatment of childhood cancer and ensure that every child with cancer has equal access to treatment and care. Pediatric oncologist Kaspers founded the Dutch branch of the organization in 2017. World Child Cancer NL finances the transfer of knowledge and expertise to international partners to improve the care for children with cancer in poorer countries. So that all children can survive cancer through the sharing of knowledge, medicines, and money.

Survival rates
World Child Cancer aims to improve the situation for children with cancer worldwide with the Prinses Máxima Center. There is currently a collaboration with partner hospitals in Indonesia, Kenya, Kosovo, Malawi, and Tanzania. Through this collaboration, the survival chances of children with cancer have dramatically increased from less than ten percent to more than thirty percent, and sometimes even sixty percent for certain types of cancer, according to Kaspers. Colleagues now work more often with specialized nurses who, through training, also stay connected to the hospital for longer periods, and many more children complete their treatment.

Awareness
World Child Cancer finances education, treatment of childhood cancer, and care in a broader sense for children with cancer. Early recognition of cancer, through awareness, is vital, according to Kaspers, because this also increases the life expectancy of children with cancer in low- and middle-income countries. Ten years ago, a hundred children with cancer were admitted annually to the Kenyan partner hospital in Eldoret. That number is now around three hundred, but still, an estimated more than a thousand cancer patients go undetected annually. “That’s why I continue to be committed to improving the survival chances of children with cancer.”

For questions or more information, please contact:

Welmer Blom
Director World Child Cancer
+31617111238
w.blom@worldchildcancer.nl