Training African Pathologists in Cancer Staging

The Training African Pathologists in Cancer Diagnosis (TAPCD) workshops kick-off meeting was held Friday, February 16th. This was the first meeting in a series of bi-weekly meetings to plan for the upcoming workshop to be held November 16th -18th, 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop will once again be held in conjunction with Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi (AKUHN). Course topics will include several new locally relevant cancers, including endometrial/ovarian; gastric/esophageal; head/neck; and breast. The workshop will be opened to interested participants by application and will be capped at 24 participants. This workshop will be conducted in the blended workshop style, with short lectures followed by small-group case completion. In addition, the next workshop series will incorporate several new elements, including reviews of challenging local cases, incorporation of local faculty co-trainers to ensure course sustainability, and an evening clinicopathological correlation (CPC) session.

Over the next 8 months, our team will continue tomeet to plan for workshop logistics and curricula development for the four cancer topics.

We have another exciting update as well! ASAP’s manuscript outlining the research conducted for the first three workshops was recently accepted for publication by the American Journal of Clinical Pathology (AJCP) for publication. We are excited to announce that the manuscript was published on February 19th, 2018. This article can be
accessed at the following link: https://academic.oup.com/ajcp/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ajcp/aqx158/4872377?guestAccessKey=723401d0-ac81-40e9-a432-e9f39d571483

We are optimistic and excited for this upcoming workshop and thank you all for your continued support!

Planning for our upcoming workshops continues as ASAP wraps up our in-person meeting in Kigali, Rwanda on November 4^th, 2017. Our team made many important decisions at this meeting that we are excited to share with our donors!

Our next workshop series will be held November 16^th-18^th, 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop will once again be held in conjunction with Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi (AKUHN). Course topics will include several new locally relevant cancers, including endometrial/ovarian; gastric/esophageal; head/neck; and breast. The workshop will be opened to interested participants by application and will be capped at 24 participants. This workshop will be conducted in the blended workshop style, with short lectures followed by small-group case completion. In addition, the next workshop series will incorporate several new elements, including reviews of challenging local cases, incorporation of local faculty co-trainers to ensure course sustainability, and an evening clinicopathological correlation (CPC) session.

We have a couple of other updates as well!

The manuscript outlining the case-testing process used to refine the case material for our workshops included within the research phase of this project was published in the African Journal of Laboratory Medicine on October 25^th. This article can be accessed at the following link: https://www.ajlmonline.org/index.php/ajlm/article/view/637/902

ASAP also submitted a manuscript outlining the research conducted for the first three workshops. We are excited to announce that this manuscript has been accepted for publication by the American Journal of Clinical Pathology (AJCP) for publication in early 2018. We will be sure to share this publication with all donors once it’s published!

In addition, ASAP Project Coordinator Stephanie Ayers gave a presentation on the three workshops held to date at the University of Colorado’s 2017 Global Health Symposium in Denver, Colorado on October 20^th.  This presentation included an overview of the research design, the results of our research, and our next steps moving forward. The presentation had 45 individuals in attendance and was well received by Denver’s global health community.

We are currently working on curriculum development for our upcoming workshop for the three new cancers that we will be including, and are continuing to fundraise for our efforts.  We are optimistic and excited for this upcoming workshop and thank you all for your continued support!