• Education projects
• Biological therapies
• BONE
• Breast cancer care
• BREATHE
• Cancer tales
• EPAAC / PEPs
• Partnership project
• Skeletal Care Academy
• Speak-up
• target
• TITAN
• Past projects

Skeletal Care Academy

What is the Skeletal Care Academy?

The Skeletal Care Academy (SCA) is an education programme developed to ensure that patients with cancer-related bone disease receive the highest standard of multi-professional care, allowing them to enjoy fuller, healthier lives.

The SCA is committed to advancing the understanding of cancer-related bone disease through continuing education. The purpose is to provide a wide variety of high-quality educational programmes and additional resources for physicians, nurses, other healthcare professionals and patients.

What does the Skeletal Care Academy programme involve?

The programme centres on an annual meeting, which provides an accelerated learning programme to equip the participants with the knowledge they need to become experts in cancer-related bone disease. After completing the programme, participants will be able to provide peer-to-peer education within their individual countries.

The programme is open to physicians, nurses and patient advocates and includes joint sessions as well as specialist worsktreams.

The SCA meeting is a train-the-trainer event that focuses on cancer-related bone disease including:

• Bone health in patients with bone loss due to hormone ablation therapy
• Cancer-induced bone disease resulting from metastatic solid tumours
• Diseases known to be associated with a high prevalence of cancer-related bone disease such as multiple myeloma, prostate and breast cancer

Sessions cover the latest scientific thinking and treatment options for cancer-related bone disease; plenary, workshop sessions, discussions and debates were included.

How is the SCA programme developed?

The SCA is led by a distinguished steering committee of international experts from the field of cancer-related bone disease. Represented on the SCA steering committee are oncologists, urologists, surgeons, nurses and patient advocacy groups. The steering committee provides input on the programme content and the direction of the SCA, as well as professional insight on clinical practice in bone disease.

In addition to the SCA steering committee, there are dedicated nursing and patient advocacy steering committees - each with representation on the SCA steering committee.

Skeletal Care Academy 2011

The SCA 2011 meeting took place in Madrid, Spain from 25-26 February 2011.

The meeting followed a similar format to 2010, with a mixture of plenary and specialist sessions, workshops and networking opportunities for physicians, nurses and patient advocates.

The programme focused on both scientific and clinical aspects of cancer-related bone disease, including bone physiology and pathophysiology, the latest management options for bone metastasis and CTIBL, clinical case studies and the need for a multi-professional approach to patient care. Attended by over 300 delegates from 35 countries, the meeting aimed to build a wider knowledge of the scale of cancer-related bone disease and the importance of bone health in patient care.

A core element of the programme discussed the benefits of nurse specialists in osteoporosis and the role of nurses in assessing/monitoring patients with cancer treatment-induced bone disease and bone metastasis. Role-plays focusing on multiple myeloma, prostate and breast cancer reflected on nursing intervention strategies in real-life scenarios and, in the marketplace, delegates attended highly interactive workshops covering key areas of bone health.

The SCA Meeting 2011 concluded with a panel discussion of topics that arose during the event. As one of the panel highlighted, “We have many tools and treatments available to us now. We must learn to use them more effectively”.

The Central European Cooperative Oncology Group (CECOG) hosted the Skeletal Care Academy 2011 meeting with support from:

• European School of Oncology (ESO)
• European Oncology Nursing Society (EONS)
• European Association of Urology Nurses (EAUN)
• European Bone Marrow and Transplantation Nursing Group (EBMT-NG)

The photographs from the 2011 meeting below give you a flavour of the workshops and presentations that took place.

Skeletal Care Academy 2012

More information on the 2012 SCA meeting will shortly be available on this webpage.

Additional information can also be found on the SCA website: www.skeletalcareacademy.com.

Please contact Medical Knowledge Group, the SCA programme coordinator with any questions or to request further information. Additional information can also be found on the SCA website: www.skeletalcareacademy.com.

Skeletal Care Academy
Medical Knowledge Group
20 Soho Square
London
W1D 3QW

Telephone: +44 207 413 3249
Fax: +44 207 413 3110
Email: skeletalcareacademy@medicalknowledgegroup.com