SIOP 2012 - Prize winning presentation from India

It is always a pleasure to get together at SIOP and meet the large contingent from India. I enjoy the interaction and exchange of ideas. I attended my first SIOP conference in Mumbai in 2007 and have gradually turned from spectator to participant. What has been noticeable is the excellent representation from India, both in context of conference participants as well as scientific abstracts.

In 2012 the conference was held at the Barbican in London and among the excellent presentations from across the world, what stood out for me (and I suspect for lots of others) was Shalini Jatia's (a volunteer social worker at Tata Memorial Hospital) clear and passionate presentation on “Predictors of Treatment Refusal and Abandonment and Impact of Personalised Psycho-Socioeconomic Support in Childhood Cancer in a Tertiary Cancer Centre in India”. She received a well deserved ovation and prize.

The key findings are as follows - The prevailing abandonment rates at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai had been 15-20%. In 2009 a data manager was recruited and in 2010 a multi-disciplinary psychosocial support group was set-up with the remit of reducing abandonment of treatment. By a combination of interventions including partial financial support, free accommodation, travel and food support, psycho-social counselling, support for transfusions, the abandonment rate decreased from 10.9% in 2010 to 5.3% in 2011. The risk factors significantly associated with abandonment included age less than 5 years, female gender, educational level of parent, and economic status. Other factors like cancer type, prognosis, treatment duration, distance from centre, family size and language were not associated. Around half of these abandoned families were contacted and the top 3 reasons given for abandonment included – belief in complementary and alternative medicine, financial challenges, and belief in incurability of cancer. Based on the findings of this study, TMH now provides full financial support to all children less than 5 years as well as all female children with cancer.