Welcome to our June Newsletter. We hope you and your family are all staying well. As you may have heard this year the SIOG Annual Conference will be held virtually due to COVID-19.
We hope you will be able to join the virtual meeting as there will be a celebration of the 20th anniversary of SIOG and a special session of COVID-19 and cancer care. We hope to see you all there!

By Nikita Fnu, Nikita Nikita  MD, MPH, Post-Doc Research Fellow, Department of Medical Oncology,
Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Health, Thomas Jefferson University. Email: fnu.nikita@jefferson.edu

Older adults with cancer (>65 years) constitute approximately 50% of all cancer diagnosed in the United States (US) and approximately 80% of all cancer related mortality occurs between 60-80 years. Older adults currently are the largest group of cancer patients and oncologists today are treating cancer patients in their 80s and 90s.¹. However, this population is continuously understudied, therefore leading to a major knowledge gap in regards to providing them with optimum care. <More>

Position Statement
We would like to thank all of you who have taken the time to complete the survey. At this moment we are working with representatives of the European Oncology Nursing Society and the Canadian Association of Nurses in Oncology to prepare the draft position statement. We had hoped to have a discussion with you about the draft at the annual meeting but unfortunately that will not be possible. We will bring it to all our members for feedback in the near future. If you have not completed our survey yet, please consider completing the survey and share it with your colleagues. Thank you! <More>

List of publications related to the care for older persons with cancer by SIOG Nursing and Allied Health members (February -May 2020):

List of publications:

1. Covington KR, Atler KE, Schmid AA, Pergolotti M. Understanding fall risk for older adults with cancer: An evaluation of experts' perceptions. J Geriatr Oncol. 2020;11(2):263-269.
2. Desideri I, Pilleron S, Battisti NML, Gomes F, de Glas N, Neuendorff NR, et al. Caring for older patients with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic: A Young International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) global perspective. J Geriatr Oncol. 2020;10.1016/j.jgo.2020.05.001.
3. Izci H, Tambuyzer T, Tuand K, Depoorter V, Laenen A, Wildiers H, et al. A Systematic Review of Estimating Breast Cancer Recurrence at the Population-Level with Administrative Data. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2020;10.1093/jnci/djaa050.
4. .<More>

Kumud Kantilal
Kumud Kantilal is a registered pharmacist in the UK, with extensive experience as a hospital pharmacist. Kumud has worked in multiple cancer centres in London and has been involved with developing cancer education and training programmes and re-designing oncology pharmacy services. Kumud is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Her research will focus on designing community services to support older cancer survivors. The goal of her research is to develop an intervention targeting healthcare professionals to support older cancer survivors to self-manage the long-term consequences of systemic anticancer treatment. 
Kumud is an active member of the British Oncology Pharmacy Association and currently sits on the Digital and Community Pharmacy sub-committees and has supported the Education and Training sub-committee in the past. Kumud has been a SIOG member since 2017 and attended her first SIOG conference in 2019, where she shared her research on the prevalence of long-term anticancer treatment side effects and satisfaction with care in older people living with and beyond cancer and got the opportunity to network and learn from international experts in geriatric oncology. She is looking forward to collaborating with and supporting initiatives of the NAH group.

EONS has a new website www.cancernurse.eu. On their new website they have the EONS Cancer Nursing Index 2020. EONS Cancer Nursing Index 2020 was developed by the EONS Advocacy Working Group to illustrate the development and status of the Oncology Nursing profession in Europe and covers Education and Career Development, Patient and Occupational Safety, Recognition, Working Conditions and Impact and Workforce.  So have a look at their new website!

Congratulations!

Our Nursing and Allied Health Interest Group Chair, Cindy Kenis and her partner Petra Verluyten had a beautiful baby girl Mia on April 28 2020.

• At this moment the CANO annual meeting for 2020 is cancelled.
• The EONS meeting for September 2020 will be a virtual event, more information to be announced soon.
• The SIOG 2020 Annual Conference will be a virtual meeting held on October 1st. More information
• An overview of future SIOG and other events is published on the SIOG website.

------------------------

Please let us know if you have any news to share with the rest of the group! Please email it to martine.puts@utoronto.ca for inclusion in our next newsletter.

You can find all issues of the SIOG NAH newsletter online at www.siog.org and on our Facebook page (SIOG Nursing & Allied Health Interest Group).

Our Twitter is @siognah so please follow us!