Articles

Global elimination: securing a future free from cervical cancer

August 7th 2020, much of the world was in various states of lockdown, anxiously awaiting news about progress in development of vaccines against the new SARS-Cov-2 virus, which by then had taken…

Articles

Chemobrain: it’s real, it’s troublesome and it deserves more attention

Fiona Henderson was part way through her psychology degree when she received her breast cancer diagnosis. Right after treatments finished, she returned to her studies – initially without a problem. “Three or…

Articles

Informal carers play a key role in cancer care: they need and deserve more support

What is it worth to patients to have someone they can rely on to provide emotional support and talk things through, help them get to and from appointments, remind them about what…

Articles

Surviving childhood cancer: how we standardise care across Europe

When Lejla Kameric’s daughter was treated for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the twelve-year-old had to get through lumbar punctures without pain relief. “15 years ago in Bosnia, painful procedures and diagnostic activities were done…

Delivery of Care

Pain relief is a right: building confidence in opioid use in oncology

Opioid analgesics are essential for pain relief and pain treatment in patients with active malignant disease. Yet, in 2011, the World Health Organization estimated that, worldwide, 5.5 million people living with terminal…

Articles

Older, frail patients are still being let down by the regulators

Hans Wildiers is frustrated. “This drug is well-tolerated in older persons – this is a very frequent conclusion in publications. And it is often not a correct conclusion,” says the immediate past…

Articles

Who wouldn’t want to cure 100% of childhood cancers?

More than eight in ten children and young adults diagnosed with cancer now survive their disease, often going on to live long and fulfilling lives. But the serious life-long damage that is…

Articles

Croatia’s cancer plan showcases the value of European cancer collaboration

Croatia has caught up with the rest of the EU in adopting a national cancer control plan. Sophie Fessl looks at how using EU guidance drawn from experiences of other member states…

Articles

Their fingers on the button: why neglecting radiation therapists is no longer an option

The job of a radiation therapist may sound straightforward: deliver the right dose of radiation to the right location. But it’s not. These are complex tasks that involve working with data, high-tech equipment and patients. Moreover, by doing each task correctly, the risks to patients can be minimised so they derive the greatest benefit from […]

Articles

Smoke without fire? Should cancer of unknown primary be treated as a separate disease?

Metastases, but no primary tumour – the diagnosis ‘cancer of unknown primary’ still presents great challenges, even in this age of precision oncology. Cancer of unknown primary (CUP) is an entity that encompasses a heterogenous group of metastatic cancers without an identifiable primary culprit. The elusive primary tumour puts clinicians in a rare dilemma: How […]