BENCHISTA-2026 International Benchmarking of Childhood Cancer Survival by Stage. Second in-person Project Working Group Meeting, held on June 15th and 16th in Milan, Italy

BENCHISTA-2026

International Benchmarking of Childhood Cancer Survival by Stage

Second in-person Project Working Group Meeting, held on June 15th and 16th in Milan, Italy

Claire Poulalhon and Emmanuel Desandes, co-Directors of the National Registry of Childhood Cancers (RNCE), participated in the 2nd BENCHISTA workshop, held in Milan, Italy, on June 15–16, 2026.

The International Benchmarking of Childhood Cancer Survival by Stage, also called The BENCHISTA Project is a collaboration involving 70 population-based cancer registries from 25 European countries, Australia, Brazil, Japan and Canada. The BENCHISTA project aims to apply the International Consensus Toronto Staging Guidelines to six solid tumours to assess the extent of variation in stage at diagnosis and analyse how this contributes to survival differences. We also plan to assess the feasibility of cancer registries to collect other types of information including data on relapse, non-stage prognostic factors, cause of death and treatment modalities (https://www.encr.eu/news/benchista-project). International variations in the stage at diagnosis across countries may contribute, among other factors, to differences in survival rates in children diagnosed with cancer.

All incident cases diagnosed with one of these six tumour types (neuroblastoma, medulloblastoma, Wilms tumour, rhabdomyosarcoma, osteosarcoma, and Ewing sarcoma) between 2014 and 2017 and registered in the RNCE are included in the analyses. Data regarding the staging examinations performed were gathered. Additional variables, including other prognostic factors unrelated to disease stage (diagnostic accuracy, type of treatment, disease progression, relapse, and cause of death), were also collected where possible (rnce.inserm.fr/recherches-et-resultats/benchista/)

• https://www.ucl.ac.uk/population-health-sciences/child-health/research/developmental-biology-and-cancer/cancer/renal-tumours-childhood-cancer-outcomes-group/benchista-project
• (https://www.encr.eu/news/benchista-project)
• (rnce.inserm.fr/recherches-et-resultats/benchista/)

By Claire Poulalhon & Emmanuel Desandes