Presentation Description: The evolution of success in the treatment of childhood cancer is acknowledged as one of the most dramatic achievements of contemporary medicine – a cure rate that rose from 20% to over 80% in 50 years.  In the last thirty years, coinciding with the life of POGO, that rate has maintained a steady upward trend. This presentation focused on the concepts and strategies that systematically moved the success rate upward, using acute lymphoblastic leukemia and medulloblastoma as exemplars of the integration of knowledge and building of strategy that made pediatric oncology the focal point of advance in understanding of the biology of cancer and the application of that understanding to therapy. Finally, the presentation addressed the implications of that knowledge pattern for survivorship

Speaker:

Mark Greenberg, OC, MB, ChB, FRCP(C), FAAP
Senior Adviser, Policy & Clinical Affairs
Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO), Toronto