International Collaboration

NARECHEM-ST is also contributing or sought to contribute, in compliance with GDPR(EU) 2016/679, its wealth of the collected information matched with the experience in hypotheses generation and data analyses to multicenter collaborating projects on a regular or ad hoc basis, as reflected in the list of publications. Specific collaborations include:

  • International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), International Association of Cancer Registries (IACR), European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR): NARECHEM-ST was invited to contribute, for the first time on behalf of Greece, high quality data to European and International childhood cancer registries which were also included in the Vol III Edition of the International Incidence of Childhood Cancer (IICC-3).
  • The Childhood Leukemia International Consortium (CLIC) notably an international group of researchers who established the Consortium in 2006 in collaboration with the University of California at Berkeley and the International Agency for Research on Cancer; CLIC has recently expanded its scope to other types of cancer and aims to share comparable data from case-control and family-based trio studies. Through this joint research, CLIC coordinates scientific efforts in order to achieve statistical power needed to elucidate the role of infectious, environmental, clinical and genetic risk factors in the etiology of childhood cancer and rare cancer tumors and subtypes.
  • International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium (I4C): NARECHEM-ST with its component of the nationwide case control study has also sought collaboration with the consortium of cohort studies for the analyses of exposures related to medical interventions, such as in vitro fertilization or delivery by cesarean section. Overall, NARECHEM-ST advocates for collaboration of the two consortia and sharing of methodological expertise.
  • South and Eastern European (SEE) Cancer Registries Network*: An open network of 16 regional and national registries in 14 European countries have joined forces and contributed data and expertise to NARECHEM-ST aiming at publishing their data on comparative epidemiologic components of childhood cancers, as shown in the list of publications. *1. Belarus 2. Bulgaria 3. Croatia 4. Cyprus 5. Greece 6. Malta 7. Montenegro 8. Poland (Regional, Greater Poland) 9. Portugal (2 Regional, Regional do Centro, Regional do North) 10. Romania (2 Regional Iasi, Cluz) 11. Serbia 12. Slovenia 13. Turkey (Regional, Izmir) 14. Ukraine
  • Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results, (SEER) Program, USA: Electronically available SEER electronic data downloaded and appropriately analyzed by NARECHEM-ST in comparative studies with childhood cancer registration data from Greece.
  • Karolinska Institute, Dept of Clinical Epidemiology and the Nordic Society of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology (NOPHO) Registries. NARECHEM-ST researchers through joint appointments have been collaborating and supervising Doctoral Theses aiming to use the Nordic experience along with the Greek data in projects related to childhood cancer research.
  • MOBI-Kids Study: NARECHEM-ST along with 14 other studies from studies Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Spain, Netherlands and the United Kingdom participate in Assessing Childhood and Adolescent Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields from Wireless Telecommunication Technologies and Possible Association with Brain Tumor Risk, which is coordinated by Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)
  • International Consortium of Investigators Working on Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Epidemiologic Studies (InterLymph): NARECHEM-ST with its component of the nationwide case control study has also sought collaboration with this open scientific forum for epidemiologic research in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma formed in 2001 with no formal reply as of now, five working groups conducts annual meetings to discuss, coordinate and develop ongoing and future research projects.
  • Implementation of Toronto staging system (2021-23): A concerted action sponsored by the Children With Cancer (UK) aiming at understanding differences in childhood cancer survival between countries on the basis of data from 40 cancer registries -including NARECHEM-ST across Europe, Australia, Japan and Canada. The project is led by Professor Kathy Pritchard-Jones, President of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP) from Oct 2019-2022 and Dr Gemma Gatta a cancer epidemiologist. We have already worked together to collect data on tumor stage at diagnosis for two children’s solid tumors across Europe. The registries have all committed to providing information on six tumor types. The team is experienced in analyzing personal information that is coded (anonymized) so that individuals cannot be identified. The research team are international leaders in measuring survival rates for different cancers in childhood and comparing these between countries or regions. They have worked together for many years to compare incidence of childhood cancers between countries and overall survival through the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR). Both these agencies have encouraged cancer registries to improve the data they collect on tumor stage according to the “Toronto” guidelines to be used in this project.