Sumit Gupta

Faculty Member

Research Interests

Dr. Gupta’s main research goal is to identify and improve the outcomes of vulnerable subpopulations of children with cancer. To this end, he currently has two main lines of research.  The first involves using health administrative data to answer important clinical and policy relevant questions. Examples include building a detailed population-based database of all Ontario adolescents and young adults (AYA) with cancer, or identifying the mental health care use of childhood cancer survivors and their family members. The second involves collaborating with international partners to improve the outcomes for children with cancer in low- and middle-income countries. Dr. Gupta is also currently a member of the Children’s Oncology Group task force tasked with designing the next clinical trial for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Professional Interests

Dr. Gupta is a Staff Oncologist at the Hospital for Sick Children. His clinical interests involve the care of children, adolescents, and young adults with haematologic malignancies. Specific interests include children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common cancer in childhood, and the unique aspects of care for adolscents and young adults.

Impact

Examples of impact include:

1. Pediatric staging recommendations for population-based cancer registries (PBCRs): PBCRs often do not collect stage data for pediatric cases, or do so using adult staging systems of limited relevance to childhood cancer. I thus obtained funding from the US National Cancer Institute to organize a consensus meeting bringing together global experts to identify principles guiding the collection of pediatric stage, and endorse specific staging systems for the major childhood cancers. Our recommendations have been published in the Lancet Oncology. Also, the TNM staging committee, the main staging authority worldwide, has endorsed our recommendations and invited a new pediatric section in the upcoming edition of their manual. We are piloting stage collection in the Australian National Pediatric Cancer Registry; further pilots are planned in India, Central America, and Europe, as are presentations to cancer registry societies.

2. Disease Control Priorities (DCP) – Cancer Volume: The DCP is an initiative co-lead by the World Bank, NIH, and Gates Foundation that aims to provide evidence based recommendations to low- and middle-income country health policymakers. I lead the childhood cancer section of the overall cancer volume, which was recently published by the World Bank. Childhood cancer treatment was included in the recommended essential package of cancer interventions, as published in the Lancet (Gelband et al., 2015). This will have a major impact worldwide as many NGOs and Ministries of Health priority set based on DCP recommendations. Our key findings have been disseminated to multiple audiences of decision-makers from South America, Africa, and Asia.

An adapted early warning signs and symptoms (EWSS) intervention to improve early recognition and referral of childhood cancers in Kenya and Cameroon: An Effectiveness Implementation Study. 5 years. Cancer accounts for a growing proportion of global childhood mortality. There are […]