Bucharest, February 15, 2024 – Sqilline Health SRL played a key role in unveiling Romania’s second national study on childhood cancers survival alongside the Dăruiește Aripi Association and the National Registry for Pediatric Oncology and Hematology (RSPOH). Utilizing a decade’s worth of data (2010-2017) from RSPOH, the report provides crucial insights into the state of childhood cancer care in Romania. Sqilline’s innovative analytic software, Danny Platform, structured and analyzed the registry data to identify areas for improvement and drive actionable insights.
Here are the main findings:
NATIONAL REGISTRY OF PEDIATRIC ONCO-HEMATOLOGY (RNOHP)
- Founded and directed by the Romanian Society of Pediatric Onco-Hematology since 2010 (since 2018 supported by the partnership with Daruieste Aripi Association).
- Voluntary participation of all the centers of the national pediatric onco-hematology network.
- Data collected, validated and processed according to the standards recommended by IACR/ENCR (affiliation since 2018).
- Cases are notified online on a dedicated, secure platform and customized (since 2019) for specific pediatric oncology requirements.
- Audited by ENCR/JRC (European Network of Cancer Registries / Joint Research Center – EC) in 2021.
- Participation in international data-calls and studies: ECIS (2022), CONCORD4 (2023) BENCHISTA (2021-2023).
- Financed exclusively from non-governmental sources.
SECOND NATIONAL STUDY ON PEDIATRIC CANCERS SURVIVAL
- The first study – in 2019 with JRC-EC technical support, cases diagnosed from 2010-2013.
- Current study – in 2023 for 3328 cases in the RNOHP database diagnosed in the period 01.01.2010 – 31.12.2017.
- Verification of “deaths” information – DEPABD data on vital status on 31.12. 2022.
- Data processing – Analytic platform for real-world data Danny Platform by Sqilline Health.
- Overall survival was analyzed using the Kaplan – Meier method.
- Survival analyzed for the entire 2010-2017 period and by incidence cohorts (cases diagnosed in 2010-2013 survival vs cases diagnosed in 2014-2017).
- In order to increase the degree of certainty ( statistical significance ), the analysis units with a too small number of cases (< 50) were not included.
- Also, the variations with very small amplitude (< 3%) are not considered significant.
CONCLUSIONS
- Survival at 5 years (in the 0-14 years group) in Romania stands at 72% (2010-2017), compared to the EU average of 81% and 71% in Eastern Europe (according to EUROCARE 6).
- The increase in survival in Romania is very accelerated, rising from 69% to 74% for small consecutive incidence cohorts (2010-13 to 2014-17).
- Chances of survival for children (0-14 years) are better than for adolescents and young people (15-19), highlighting the need for dedicated services (PNCC and SIOPE objective).
- Survival rates differ significantly depending on the area/region of residence of the case, with an 8% difference between urban and rural areas, as well as between BIF and NE/SE regions.
- Survival rates increased significantly in 2014-2017 compared to 2010-2013 for most types of tumors, especially in the 0-14 age group, including – hemopathies (>5% ALL, NHL) and solid tumours (>5% in soft tissues, renal, germinal; >10% in CNS, bone).
