The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital entered a significant new partnership to address inequality in global childhood cancer care at the Agency's Rays of Hope Forum in Ethiopia today.
St. Jude, based in Memphis, Tennessee in the United States, is investing US $4.5 million over three years for the IAEA to support countries in expanding access to paediatric radiotherapy and to strengthen health systems, with the goal of improving survival rates and quality of life for children with cancer in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Each year, an estimated 400,000 children develop cancer globally. While survival rates exceed 80% in high-income countries with accessible care, over 90% of children with cancer reside in LMICs, where survival rates remain below 30%.
A major contributor to this disparity is limited access to advanced clinical imaging, which is critical for accurate diseases classification, treatment planning and monitoring. Without it, children face delays or errors in diagnosis, significantly impacting outcomes.
Access to paediatric radiotherapy is severely limited in LMICs, despite its importance in treating nearly half of all childhood cancers. A 2021 IAEA study highlighted major challenges in these settings, including equipment access or insufficiencies, and a critical shortage of specialized radiation medicine professionals for childhood cancers.
"Children should not die of cancer simply because of where they are born. Every child, everywhere, deserves the same chance to survive and thrive," said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. "By closing the gap in access to cancer care, we can ensure that children, regardless of their geographic location or economic status, have equal opportunities for successful treatment. Survival should be a reality, not a privilege."
The collaboration between the IAEA and St. Jude aims to strengthen national capacity in childhood cancer care and control and to improve access to paediatric radiotherapy by training specialists-essential for improving survival and outcomes for children with cancer. The partnership focuses on delivering technical resources, curricula and guidance documents for radiation oncologists, radiotherapy technicians and medical physicists, and supporting their implementation in selected LMICs. Through the imPACT Review assessment tools for childhood cancer, the collaboration also will assess capacities and needs of health systems and strengthen national cancer control programmes.
"Over the past decade, St. Jude has expanded its global presence in pursuit of increasing childhood cancer cure rates worldwide. A critical step in our mission is ensuring children everywhere have access to necessary diagnostics and treatment," said James R. Downing, MD, president and CEO of St. Jude. "Partnering with IAEA highlights that commitment and will help save countless lives."
This marks the launch of the IAEA's Rays of Hope for Childhood Cancer, under the wider IAEA Rays of Hope initiative. Rays of Hope has expanded life-saving cancer care to thousands of patients in LMICs around the world since launching in 2022. Securing more than €90 million already from dedicated donors and partners, including governments mobilizing national resources, has helped close the gap in global radiation medicine. Building on this impact, the IAEA is working with St. Jude to expand the initiative to focus on the gap in childhood cancer care.
"Limited access to specialized care for children with cancer has a negative impact on their chances to be cured," said Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, MD, St. Jude executive vice president and director of St. Jude Global. "Significant gaps in the quality of radiotherapy services exist in LMICs when compared to what is routine practice across high-income countries. This effort with IAEA will help strengthen the national capacity to treat children with cancer, and increase access to the vital diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy that will improve the survival rate and quality of life for children affected by cancers where these treatments play a prominent role."
Following today's signing, the first phase of the Rays of Hope for Childhood Cancer initiative will focus on jointly developing technical products and guidance documents-referred to as Global Goods-and organizing a series of events to support their effective adoption and use by countries. Addressing childhood cancer is a multifaceted challenge requiring a comprehensive approach where the IAEA and St. Jude play key roles. It involves complex procedures that require sophisticated decision-making and highly technical skills that require specialized training. For paediatric radiotherapy specialists, partnership trainings and Global Goods will reduce knowledge gaps and enhance the quality of care their patients receive.
IAEA
The IAEA has over 60 years of experience supporting countries in the fight against cancer, including childhood cancer. Through its Human Health Programme, the IAEA has helped countries around the world to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease by developing and applying nuclear and radiation techniques. Its medical expertise across nutrition, radiology, nuclear medicine, radiobiology, radiation oncology, medical physics and dosimetry has advanced cancer care capacities through coordinated research projects, educational materials, e-learning modules, curricula, guidance documents, scientific publications, international codes of practice, databases, quality assurance activities, audit services, databases, the Human Health Campus and the implementation of the Technical Cooperation Programme. Through its Technical Cooperation Programme, it helps countries strengthen cancer care by providing equipment, training and technical assistance in diagnostic imaging, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy. Operating across four global regions, the programme tailors support to local needs and promotes regional collaboration.
The IAEA's Rays of Hope initiative, launched in 2022, builds on this work to accelerate access to radiotherapy and medical imaging in low-resource settings. Through Rays of Hope the IAEA promotes comprehensive cancer care where it is needed most and has designated regional anchor centres to serve as knowledge and capacity building hubs for radiation medicine.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, is a global leader in the research and treatment of childhood cancer, sickle cell disease and other life-threatening pediatric diseases. St. Jude is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the U.S. childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to 80% since the hospital opened in 1962. St. Jude is extending its mission to help more children around the world. In 2018, St. Jude and World Health Organization launched the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer to increase survival rates from 20% to 60% by 2030 for six of the most common forms of childhood cancer. The St. Jude Global Alliance is a global network with a shared vision of improving care and increasing survival rates of children with cancer and blood disorders worldwide. To learn more, visit stjude.org, read the St. Jude Progress blog, and follow St. Jude on social media @stjuderesearch.
