ECCO Essential Requirements for Quality Cancer Care: Soft Tissue Sarcoma in Adults and Bone Sarcoma. A critical review

Elisabeth Andritsch, Marc Beishon, Stefan Bielack, Sylvie Bonvalot, Paolo Casali, Mirjam Crul, Roberto Delgado Bolton, Davide Maria Donati, Hassan Douis, Rick Haas, Pancras Hogendoorn, Olga Kozhaeva, Verna Lavender, Jozsef Lovey, Anastassia Negrouk, Philippe Pereira, Pierre Roca, Godelieve Rochette de Lempdes, Tiina Saarto, Bert van BerckGilles Vassal, Markus Wartenberg, Wendy Yared, Alberto Costa, Peter Naredi

    Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

    99 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Background ECCO essential requirements for quality cancer care (ERQCC) are checklists and explanations of organisation and actions that are necessary to give high-quality care to patients who have a specific tumour type. They are written by European experts representing all disciplines involved in cancer care. ERQCC papers give oncology teams, patients, policymakers and managers an overview of the elements needed in any healthcare system to provide high quality of care throughout the patient journey. References are made to clinical guidelines and other resources where appropriate, and the focus is on care in Europe. Sarcoma: essential requirements for quality care • Sarcomas – which can be classified into soft tissue and bone sarcomas – are rare, but all rare cancers make up more than 20% of cancers in Europe, and there are substantial inequalities in access to high-quality care. Sarcomas, of which there are many subtypes, comprise a particularly complex and demanding challenge for healthcare systems and providers. This paper presents essential requirements for quality cancer care of soft tissue sarcomas in adults and bone sarcomas. • High-quality care must only be carried out in specialised sarcoma centres (including paediatric cancer centres) which have both a core multidisciplinary team and an extended team of allied professionals, and which are subject to quality and audit procedures. Access to such units is far from universal in all European countries. • It is essential that, to meet European aspirations for high-quality comprehensive cancer control, healthcare organisations implement the requirements in this paper, paying particular attention to multidisciplinarity and patient-centred pathways from diagnosis and follow-up, to treatment, to improve survival and quality of life for patients. Conclusion Taken together, the information presented in this paper provides a comprehensive description of the essential requirements for establishing a high-quality service for soft tissue sarcomas in adults and bone sarcomas. The ECCO expert group is aware that it is not possible to propose a ‘one size fits all’ system for all countries, but urges that access to multidisciplinary teams is guaranteed to all patients with sarcoma.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)94-105
    Number of pages12
    JournalCritical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology
    Volume110
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2017

    Keywords

    • Audit
    • Bone sarcoma
    • Cancer centre
    • Cancer centres
    • Cancer unit
    • Cancer units
    • Care pathways
    • Europe
    • European CanCer Organisation
    • Multidisciplinary
    • Multidisciplinary team
    • Multidisciplinary working
    • Organisation of care
    • Paediatric cancer
    • Patient-centred
    • Quality
    • Quality assurance
    • Rare cancer
    • Sarcoma
    • Soft tissue sarcoma

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