This is focussed on teaching children to use the language of art to express themselves through painting, drawing, collage, photography and sculpture. This aids the child to resume contact with their senses and emotions. This is conducted by a plastic arts teacher who is on site on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
It is fundamentally important to maintain educational continuity for all these young patients. This continuity is supplied both within and outside Gustave Roussy thanks to a teaching team composed of teachers from the National Education system and volunteer teachers who are members of the « School in the Hospital » charitable association. The team is involved in and conscious of the specific needs of these pupils.
3 million individuals aged over 15 years have had cancer at some time during their life, which represents 6% of the French population in that age group. At present, there are 25,000 adult survivors of childhood cancer in France. 75% of these have severe or incapacitating symptoms 35 years later.
Paediatric oncology long-term follow-up has, therefore, a major role:
Children with cancer very frequently have pain. The doctor should look for this routinely. Different measuring scales are used according to the child’s age. These include the DEGR scale, the Visual Analogue Scale, drawing on a figure and the word scale. Once it has been measured the pain is localised and characterised by clinical history and examination.
En cancérologie générale, on appelle habituellement « cancers rares » les tumeurs qui représentent moins de 1 pour 100 des cancers. Selon ce critère, tous les cancers des enfants sont des cancers rares. En oncologie pédiatrique on convient d'appeler « tumeurs rares » celles dont on observe moins de 10 cas par an, en France. Ces tumeurs touchent différents organes :
Les tumeurs germinales malignes sont des tumeurs issues de la transformation de cellules primitives, destinées à donner les ovules, chez la femme, ou les spermatozoides, chez l’homme. Ces tumeurs sont majoritairement localisées aux organes génitaux mais elles sont parfois aussi localisées dans le cerveau, le médiastin ou la région sacro-coccygienne. Elles peuvent se trouver plus rarement dans d'autres localisations.