History

The history of oncology in Latin America has now more than 80 years. Since 1921, with the beginning of the first Cancer Institute in the region, a period of research and development in some selected countries has occurred. Around 1950-1960 the medical treatment of cancer with anti-neoplastic drugs was initiated. After 1965, the first cooperative activities took place preparing the launching of a bustling period of clinical cancer research. Nowadays, several thousand medical oncologists are working in the region, and are participating in different educational and research activities.

During the last decade we have started to understand and develop the concept of a global oncology with the participation of different colleagues from all over the world.

Based on this concept we developed a strong exchange of activities between Latin America and ESMO in Europe and ASCO in the US, both the leading organizations in the world.

In 1994 Argentina was accepted as a country member of ESMO and Eduardo Cazap was the National Representative for two terms. After Israel and Turkey, Argentina became the third country accepted from outside Europe and the only one from Latin America at that time.  Currently, ESMO has a strong interaction with the region following this early example.

During the ASCO Presidency of Dr. Charles Coltman, collaborative activities were initiated with Argentina Dr. Coltman was a facilitator for the development of collaborative protocols between US and Latin American centers as well as educational activities with ASCO speakers attending Argentinean Meetings.

The first time that ASCO sponsored an Educational activity outside the US was in June 1997 at the 13° Argentine Congress of Clinical Oncology in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Presidential Session was entitled "Advances in Clinical  Oncology "  chaired by A. Lichter (ASCO President) and E. Cazap (AAOC President).
The invited speakers were Charles Coltman, Richard Pazdur and Anthony Greco.

For many years, the relationship between ESMO and the Latin American Region was very profitable.  A joint meeting between ESMO and the Argentine Association of Clinical Oncology (AAOC) was held in Mar del Plata in 1997, co-chaired by Heine Hansen.   In several opportunities ESMO has participated in educational activities through relevant leaders that shared their experience with the local oncologists.

Jean Pierre Armand, Jan Vermorken, Hernán Cortés Funes, Bob Pinedo, A. De Gramont, David Khayat, Thomas Turz, among others were ESMO speakers in different opportunities.
This last September, during the FLASCA conference, a Latin American Oncology /ASCO Leadership Meeting was held. There was participation of ASCO leadership together with representatives from 14 countries of the region.

At the same time, ESMO was represented by Dirk Schrijvers and Nathan Cherny. A Palliative Care Symposium took place with a real success of participants.
This meeting was very positive and provided a forum for the exchange of ideas and the discussion of future projects between ASCO, ESMO and the Latin American oncology community, Preliminary discussion also focused on the development of a professional membership organization for medical oncologists in the region of Latin America.

Currently, there exists in Latin America a diversity of levels in medical oncologist qualifications, countries with limited resources, and a very high incidence of disease. There is a tremendous need to develop consistent standards in cancer education, research, cancer care and information dissemination.

It is the strong conviction of the founding leaders of SLACOM that the development of a regional Society, comprised of medical oncologists from different countries in the region, would have a pivotal role in the education and training of its members, and through them, setting standards of care that would benefit cancer patients in the region.