Significance of UICC Activities in Global Health Initiatives on Cancer Looking Towards the Future of Cooperative Networks for Cancer Care in Asia - A Dialogue with the Union for International Cancer Control(UICC).

At the 24th Asia Pacific Cancer Conference held in Seoul, Korea from 22 to 24 June 2017, a dialogue with Dr.Cary Adams, CEO of the Union for International Cancer Control(UICC)was held to discuss the significance of UICC activities in global health initiatives on cancer and pathways for cooperation on cancer control and care.UICC is engaged in a wide range of capacity building, advocacy and convening initiatives and is increasingly focusing on multi-sectoral approaches.In Japan activities are still predominantly focused on scientific and clinical research and this dialogue provided an opportunity to discuss the possibilities for expanding cooperation in Asia, using the UICC Asia Regional Office(UICC-ARO)as a platform.Discussion also covered UICC's new C/Can 2025: City Cancer Challenge, a new multi-sectoral initiative that has the potential to bring multiple stakeholders together.

Reinforcing the role of psycho-social oncology in global cancer prevention: applying psycho-oncology research in programmes and practice.

Over the past decade, global action to address the emerging crisis in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) has escalated. Central to these efforts has been the support and influence of the World Health Organisation and the United Nations with the 2000 civil societies represented by the Non-Communicable Disease Alliance. In particular this reached expression in the world's first High Level Meeting on NCDs by the United Nations leading to the 2011 Political Declaration urging a coordinated global response to NCDs. Where then does psycho-oncology sit in this global context? Psycho-oncology practitioners and their collective, the International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS), have traditionally been situated within a patient focus and context. However, through linkages with community-based and non-government cancer organisations' agencies, psycho-oncology research and practice has played a key role in reducing cancer risk, improving cancer survivorship, and influencing social and cultural change to eliminate disease-related stigma. As a discipline, psycho-oncology has contributed to widespread recognition of patient-centred care in cancer and along with a broad acceptance and endorsement of the IPOS International Standard. However psycho-oncology is less well accepted in nation-state cancer plans and herein lies opportunity. This special issue includes research across the illness continuum from cancer prevention to screening and early detection, and then to tertiary prevention with lifestyle considerations for cancer survivors. Importantly this demonstrates the capacity within psycho-oncology to develop new understandings of cancer as not only a disease but also a context linked to individual, community, and society health and well-being. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Unification of Efforts to Improve Global Access to Cancer Therapeutics: Report From the 2022/2023 Access to Essential Cancer Medicines Stakeholder Summit.

PURPOSE: There is an urgent need to improve access to cancer therapy globally. Several independent initiatives have been undertaken to improve access to cancer medicines, and additional new initiatives are in development. Improved sharing of experiences and increased collaboration are needed to achieve substantial improvements in global access to essential oncology medicines. METHODS: The inaugural Access to Essential Cancer Medicines Stakeholder Meeting was organized by ASCO and convened at the June 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, with two subsequent meetings, Union for International Cancer Control World Cancer Congress held in Geneva, Switzerland, in October 2022 and at the ASCO Annual Meeting in June of 2023. Invited stakeholders included representatives from cancer institutes, physicians, researchers, professional societies, the pharmaceutical industry, patient advocacy organizations, funders, cancer organizations and foundations, policy makers, and regulatory bodies. The session was moderated by ASCO. Past efforts and current and upcoming initiatives were initially discussed (2022), updates on progress were provided (2023), and broad agreement on resulting action steps was achieved with participants. RESULTS: Summit participants recognized that while much work was ongoing to enhance access to cancer therapeutics globally, communication and synergy across projects and organizations could be enhanced by providing a platform for collaboration and shared expertise. CONCLUSION: The summit resulted in new cross-stakeholder insights and planned collaboration addressing barriers to accessing cancer medications. Specific actions and timelines for implementation and reporting were established.

Global Cancer Drug Development-A Report From the 2022 Accelerating Anticancer Agent Development and Validation Meeting.

Rapidly expanding systemic treatment options, combined with improved screening, diagnostic, surgical, and radiotherapy techniques, have led to improved survival outcomes for many cancers over time. However, these overall survival gains have disproportionately benefited patients in high-income countries, whereas patients in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) continue to experience challenges in accessing timely and guideline concordant care. In September 2022, the Accelerating Anticancer Agent Development and Validation workshop was held, focusing on global cancer drug development. Panelists discussed key barriers such as the lack of diagnostic services and human resources, drug accessibility and affordability, lack of research infrastructure, and regulatory and authorization challenges, with a particular focus on Africa and Latin America. Potential opportunities to improve access and affordability were reviewed, such as the importance of prioritizing investments in diagnostics, investing health infrastructure and work force planning, coordinated drug procurement efforts and streamlined regulatory processing, incentivized pricing through regulatory change, and the importance of developing and promoting clinical trials that can answer relevant clinical questions for patients in LMICs. As a cancer community, we must continue to advocate for and work toward equitable access to high-quality interventions for patients, regardless of their geographical location.

Priority actions for the non-communicable disease crisis.

The UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in September, 2011, is an unprecedented opportunity to create a sustained global movement against premature death and preventable morbidity and disability from NCDs, mainly heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease. The increasing global crisis in NCDs is a barrier to development goals including poverty reduction, health equity, economic stability, and human security. The Lancet NCD Action Group and the NCD Alliance propose five overarching priority actions for the response to the crisis--leadership, prevention, treatment, international cooperation, and monitoring and accountability--and the delivery of five priority interventions--tobacco control, salt reduction, improved diets and physical activity, reduction in hazardous alcohol intake, and essential drugs and technologies. The priority interventions were chosen for their health effects, cost-effectiveness, low costs of implementation, and political and financial feasibility. The most urgent and immediate priority is tobacco control. We propose as a goal for 2040, a world essentially free from tobacco where less than 5% of people use tobacco. Implementation of the priority interventions, at an estimated global commitment of about US$9 billion per year, will bring enormous benefits to social and economic development and to the health sector. If widely adopted, these interventions will achieve the global goal of reducing NCD death rates by 2% per year, averting tens of millions of premature deaths in this decade.

The threat of the COVID-19 pandemic on reversing global life-saving gains in the survival of childhood cancer: a call for collaborative action from SIOP, IPSO, PROS, WCC, CCI, St Jude Global, UICC and WHPCA.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented health crisis in all socio-economic regions across the globe. While the pandemic has had a profound impact on access to and delivery of health care by all services, it has been particularly disruptive for the care of patients with life-threatening noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as the treatment of children and young people with cancer. The reduction in child mortality from preventable causes over the last 50 years has seen childhood cancer emerge as a major unmet health care need. Whilst survival rates of 85% have been achieved in high income countries, this has not yet been translated into similar outcomes for children with cancer in resource-limited settings where survival averages 30%. Launched in 2018, by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer (GICC) is a pivotal effort by the international community to achieve at least 60% survival for children with cancer by 2030. The WHO GICC is already making an impact in many countries but the disruption of cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to set back this global effort to improve the outcome for children with cancer, wherever they may live. As representatives of the global community committed to fostering the goals of the GICC, we applaud the WHO response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular we support the WHO's call to ensure the needs of patients with life threatening NCDs including cancer are not compromised during the pandemic. Here, as collaborative partners in the GICC, we highlight specific areas of focus that need to be addressed to ensure the immediate care of children and adolescents with cancer is not disrupted during the pandemic; and measures to sustain the development of cancer care so the long-term goals of the GICC are not lost during this global health crisis.

Phylogenetic analysis of avian poxviruses among free-ranging birds of Virginia.

Polymerase chain reaction was used to amplify a portion of the avian poxvirus core 4b gene of infected free-ranging birds that presented at the Wildlife Center of Virginia during the 2003 and early 2004 years. The species of bird infected were a great blue heron (Ardea herodias), two American crows (Corvus brachyrhyncos), two American robins (Turdus migratorius), two mourning doves (Zenaida macroura), a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), a blue-gray gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea), a northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos), a house finch (Carpodacus mexicanus), and a northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis). Phylogenetic analysis was performed using the consensus sequences determined for each avian case in Virginia in combination with avian poxvirus core 4b gene sequence from isolates previously described in Europe and that of vaccinia virus. Alignment of DNA sequences identified areas of point mutations and, in the case of a single mourning dove, the incorporation of a triplet of nucleotides. Maximum-likelihood analysis grouped the 2003-2004 Virginia avian poxviruses into a clade distinct from those reported in European free-ranging birds, with the exception of a single case in a mourning dove that clustered within one European clade. The cladogram that resulted from our analysis of the European isolates is in agreement with those previously published. This study identified a distinct clade of avian poxvirus unique from four clades previously described and associated with epornitics in free-ranging birds, where the core 4b gene DNA sequence has been the basis of comparison.

In vivo expression analysis of the P97 and P102 paralog families of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae.

The P97 adhesin and P102 genes of Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae each have six paralogs in the genome. We tested whether these genes were expressed during infection. P102 is associated with the mycoplasma and with swine cilia. Further, most of the paralogs were transcribed in vivo in two gene transcriptional units.