Dr Sam Volchenboum outlines the progress that has been made in the paediatric oncology field in recent years and his hopes for its future. Dr Volchenboum also explains the important role that data will play in the new era of targeted and personalised therapies and the impact of the work that his research group at the University of Chicago is doing to collect and standardise the data of children with cancer across the world.
There is great potential for improvement if pharma companies can use agreed-upon standards for collecting data and for data interoperability. Even if the companies do not intend to share their data, I would like to see a move towards collecting data in a way that ultimately, once it has been used or been published, means that the data can be shared and then studied by a larger group
