In this interview, we meet Dr. Riccardo Haupt from the team at the Istituto Giannina Gaslini clinic in Genoa, Italy.
Please introduce yourself and share with us why you joined PanCareFollowUp.
I am Riccardo Haupt, I am a pediatric oncologist with a long lasting interest in the study and possible prevention of late effect of childhood cancer treatments. In our clinic, we are interested in joining the PanCareFollowUp study with particular focus on survivors transitioning from pediatric to adult care. We want to test the electronic format of the Survivorship Passport (SurPass) updated with all the organ-specific follow-up recommendations proposed by the PanCareFollowUp project.
Introduce your clinic and how long-term follow-up is organised in your clinic/country.
At our institution, we have recently opened a dedicated clinic: the DOPO (after) clinic which is the acronym of Diagnosis Observation Prevention dopo (after) Oncologic treatment. Survivors enter the clinic 2 years after having completed the treatment for their original cancer and being in continuous complete remission. The clinic is open 5 days a week and we see between 5-7 survivors per day.
The clinic has a dedicated nurse and two physicians; psychologist is available 3 days/week. Our institution is a pediatric hospital with almost all specialties available, however we are building collaboration also with the general hospital in our city to refer adult survivors.
Why do you think PanCareFollowUp is an important project?
With a pragmatic approach, based on international consensus, PanCareFollowUp is generating a comprehensive set of organ-specific follow-up recommendations for childhood cancer survivors. This will allow homogeneous standard of care across Europe.
The person-centered care approach of PanCareFollowUp will also allow further empowerment of survivors, all with access to a comprehensive treatment summary and care plan.
What makes this project unique for you?
The opportunity to work together with most of the European experts in this field.
What do you hope this project will achieve in general?
We will generate standards for care of the European Childhood Cancer Survivors. This will be the basis for future developments based on new knowledge that will be gained in the future from this and other similar projects in Europe and worldwide.
What will this project add to long-term follow-up care in your clinic/country?
This project will give further visibility to our clinic at hospital as well at regional level. We are sure that several other institutions of the Italian network of pediatric hematology/oncology centers will adopt the PanCareFollowUp approach.
What will be the most important benefit for survivors in your clinic/ country?
As said before, I‘m sure that several other pediatric institutions will adopt the PanCareFollowUp approach, as most of them already adopted the electronic Survivorship Passport, which may be updated with the algorithms developed within PanCareFollowUp.
What’s the biggest challenge for your clinic in PanCareFollowUp?
Coordinating care from experts from the general hospitals and/or GPs.
What’s the most fun thing for you in PanCareFollowUp?
Not sure it is „fun“ but the fact that thanks to PanCareFollowUp, each survivor included in this study (but in theory any survivor attending our clinic) will go away with his/her Survivorship Passport and care plan is of great satisfaction in particular for somebody like me who has been in this field for more than 30 years!!
What’s the most important benefit of your work within PanCareFollowUp for survivors?
To receive a comprehensive electronic Passport with complete medical history and care plan.
What else do we need to know about your clinic or is there anything else you want to share?
The COVID-19 pandemic is complicating very much the possibilities for regular access to care of this at risk population. We are working very hard to try to deal with these problems.