The Italian Consensus Conference on the role of rehabilitation for children and adolescents with leukemia, central nervous system tumors, and bone cancer, part 2: general principles for the rehabilitation treatment of motor function impairments.

In Italy, 1400 children and 800 adolescents are diagnosed with cancer every year. About 80% of them can be cured but are at high risk of experiencing severe side effects, many of which respond to rehabilitation treatment. Due to the paucity of literature on this topic, the Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology organized a Consensus Conference on the role of rehabilitation of motor impairments in children/adolescents affected by leukemia, central nervous system tumors, and bone cancer to state recommendations to improve clinical practice. This paper includes the consensus on the rehabilitation of children and adolescents with these cancers.

The Italian consensus conference on the role of rehabilitation for children and adolescents with leukemia, central nervous system, and bone tumors, part 1: Review of the conference and presentation of consensus statements on rehabilitative evaluation of motor aspects.

Because of increasing survival rates in pediatric oncology, attention is focusing on cancer and its treatment-related side effects. Rehabilitation may reduce their impact. However, the literature does not provide strong evidence regarding rehabilitation pathways. Therefore, the Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology organized a consensus conference on the role of rehabilitation of motor impairments in children/adolescents affected by leukemia, central nervous system, and bone tumors to define recommendations for daily practice. The grading of recommendation assessment, developing and evaluation (GRADE) method was used in order to formulate questions, select outcomes, evaluate evidence, and create recommendations. This paper includes the results on the rehabilitation assessment.

A new frontier of pediatric oncology rehabilitation: Establishment of a dedicated working-group within the Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology.

PURPOSE: In Italy, most children and adolescents affected by oncological diseases are treated in one of the centers within the Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (AIEOP). AIEOP relies on groups of experts; each of them develops interventions in their specific field of expertise to improve the diagnostic, therapeutic, and assistance pathway of patients and families. Although rehabilitation is an important field in pediatric oncology, until recently there was no working group dedicated to it. This study intends to show the steps that led to the creation of the rehabilitation working group in AIEOP. METHODS: First of all, a survey to identify the various rehabilitation approaches applied throughout Italian centers was sent via email to 39 AIEOP centers that provide rehabilitation. RESULTS: Answers received from 31 centers showed a lack of homogeneity in rehabilitation methods in terms of type of treatment, number of patients, and outcome measurement. CONCLUSIONS: Some results of the survey were chosen as basic criteria of clinical best practice on which to build the first rehabilitation working-group at the national level to be proposed to the AIEOP commission.

Rehabilitative intervention during and after pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: An analysis of the existing literature.

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is a therapeutic strategy for several oncohematological diseases. It increases survival rates but leads to a high incidence of related effects. The objective of this paper was to examine the existing literature on physical exercise interventions among pediatric HSCT recipients to explore the most often utilized rehabilitative assessment and treatment tools. Studies published from 2002 to April 1, 2015 were selected: 10 studies were included. A previous literary review has shown that rehabilitation programs have a positive impact on quality of life. Our analysis identified some significant outcome variables and shared intervention areas.