Winette Van der Graaf, oncologist: I never would have imagined seeing patients with colorectal cancer at age 19

An oncologist specializing in sarcomas and cancers in teens and young adults helped pioneer care and personalized support for patients aged 15 to 39. This age group often falls between pediatric and adult oncology, putting life on hold and creating a need for specific structures. The oncologist created approaches for adolescent and young adult cancer care, helped bring targeted therapy such as imatinib for gastrointestinal stromal tumors, and led clinical trials including one supporting pazopanib for a sarcoma subgroup. She also experienced cancer personally when her daughter was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, observing short- and long-term treatment effects and impacts on families. That experience strengthened her focus on patient-centered care and analysis of pediatric care organization, motivating recognition of unmet needs for young people.

"Sometimes in no man's land, halfway between pediatric and adult oncology, cancer at this age puts life on hold, says Van der Graaf. The doctor, who is currently professor of medical oncology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, has been dealing with cancer for more than three decades. From all perspectives. As an oncologist, she created specific structures to address the disease in adolescents and young adults, experienced firsthand the arrival of the promising drug imatinib for gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) and led other key clinical trials, such as the one that endorsed pazopanib for a subgroup of sarcomas."

"But in these years, Van der Graaf has also experienced cancer from the other side: in the early 2000s, she had to deal with the medulloblastoma that her six-year-old daughter was diagnosed with. The child's brain tumor had a huge impact, she says. It was a pretty difficult time. My daughter survived, but I've seen the short-term, and also the long-term effects of treatment [she received chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery] and the impact on families."

"I was always very interested in the patient behind the disease, but since this experience, even more, admits the oncologist, who is also president of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer. You learn from everything. And these experiences helped her to analyse in detail how paediatric cancer care was organized, and to realize that there was no specific care for young pe"

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