Cancer research: EpicKids

EpicKids aims to produce information guides based on objective date and critical nutrition parameters to help medical teams and personnel map a path of nutritional statistics among southern European children and adolescents with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and certain types of brain tumors.   Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) and the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer are participants in the study as research agencies. Hospitals taking part in the study Hospital Niño Jesus and Hospital de la Paz in Madrid, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu and Hospital Vall D'Hebron in Barcelona, Hospital Virgen del Rocio in Seville, Fondazione Monza e Brianza and Fondazione IRCCS in Italy and Aghia Sofia children’s hospital in Athens.   Elena Ladas, associate professor for Global Integrative Medicine at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, thanked Aladina for “its commitment to every aspect of the welfare of children with cancer”. She also emphasized that “it is important for me to highlight the collaboration of all the entities involved and the hospitals taking part in the study. This is a multi-country project and the first of its kind”. According to Inge Huybrechts, head of Lifestyle Exposure and Interventions Team for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), “For IARC, this study is a milestone due to the fact that it is the first time various international organizations and several hospitals teamed up to conduct a conjoined study to analyze the impact of nutrition on cancer treatments.” Andres Morales, the Clinical Director of the Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona, expressed that “there is no data on nutrition in southern Europe and its impacts on treatment and disease control regarding children with cancer. Thanks to the number and relevance of the Spanish hospitals participating in the study, the EpicKids research project will achieve 50% sampling representation of children with cancer in Spain. This is a great first step with respect to nutrition and lays the groundwork for future correlational research on nutrition and childhood cancer”. For more information on this project, click here.