Tailored care and aftercare
Adolescents and young adults with cancer often have specific medical problems and are confronted with many psychosocial challenges: how to proceed with your studies or your job, how do you communicate with your friends and family, what about your fertility? Exactly because of these age-specific questions, they deserve customised care and after-care.
In addition to tailored care for the age-specific needs of AYA's, the convention also wants to commit to early qualitative diagnosis, early referral to fertility, genetic counseling and inclusion in clinical trials.
The convention is an acknowledgement of our work and creates important opportuniteis for AYA care in the coming years.
Kleo Dubois, policy officer project AYA at UZ Leuven: “At UZ Leuven, we and many colleagues have been committed to age-specific care for adolescents and young adults with cancer for years. A healthcare provider visits each new AYA to proactively discuss themes that are important for this target group. The convention is an acknowledgement of that work and creates important opportunities for AYA care in the coming years. We're pleased to be able to strengthen our multidisciplinary team and focus further on improvement actions."
"In addition we also look forward to the collaboration with other reference centres to develop an umbrella AYA policy: we would love to share our knowledge and experiences with other hospitals and first line care.”
© UZ Leuven
The six hospitals joining the convention on 1 December 2023 together with NIHDI are UZ Leuven, UZ Gent, UZ Antwerpen, CHU Liège Sart-Tilman, Institut Jules Bordet and Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc in Brussel.