European Survey on Standards of Care in paediatric oncology centres.

Background: In recent years, the European Commission has supported an increased focus on rare cancers in order to improve quality of care, disseminate best practice and set up networks to improve access that is essential to continued progress. At European Union (EU) conference in 2009, an agreement was reached to create a 'European Standard of Care for Children with Cancer'. In 2013, the European Paediatric Oncology Society launched a Europe-wide survey in order to assess the implementation of the Standards.

Challenges for children and adolescents with cancer in Europe: the SIOP-Europe agenda.

In Europe, 6,000 young people die of cancer yearly, the commonest disease causing death beyond the age of 1 year. In addition, 300,000-500,000 European citizens are survivors of a childhood cancer and up to 30% of them have severe long-term sequelae of their treatment. Increasing both cure and quality of cure are the two goals of the European paediatric haematology/oncology community.