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View on your web browser HARMONIC is a European-funded project that seeks to improve our knowledge on the health effects of medical exposure to ionising radiation in childhood, particularly in cancer patients treated with modern radiotherapy techniques and cardiac patients treated with X-ray guided imaging procedures.   We are building the first international registry of paediatric cancer patients treated with modern radiotherapy techniques. Activities in the first 2 years of the project were devoted to setting up the infrastructure of the registry and protocols for data collection and analyses. The main objective is to provide crucial information on clinical efficiency and the risk of developing diseases as a result of radiation exposure, as well as the impact on the patients’ quality of life.   We are pooling data on approximately 100,000 paediatric patients who underwent cardiac catheterization in Europe. We developed a common protocol for data collection in medical centres performing paediatric cardiac catheterization and are currently collecting information from 7 European countries to study the relationship between radiation exposure early in life, and subsequent cancer in children treated for cardiac birth defects.   We established the strategy for estimating radiation doses received by different organs of the body for both cohorts of the study. We set-up and adapted computational frameworks and models to the project specificities and compared these with experimental data obtained from the irradiation of paediatric phantoms. We are developing computational tools to facilitate the collection of dosimetric data and the estimation of organ doses.   We are investigating the biological mechanisms and potential biomarkers of adverse health effects, which will help to select optimal diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for each patient. We will focus on the development of tumours and vascular disease. We have developed a detailed protocol for collecting, preparing, storing and transporting saliva and blood samples, and have performed pilot studies to test the quality and quantity of these samples required for the proposed analyses. LATEST NEWS The AIR2 June Issue Is Dedicated to Harmonic 09/07/2020 — The 13th Special Issue of AIR2 is dedicated to the presentation of the European project HARMONIC, selected during the EURATOM call for projects in 2018 […] First Scientific Publication by HARMONIC 10/11/2020 — It describes how it will evaluate the association between cardiac fluoroscopy in childhood and cancer risk later in life […] What is a Phantom Doing in our Study? 25/11/2020 — Radiation may sound scary, but actually its use in medical settings has radically improved the diagnosis and treatment of many patients, including those with cancer […] HARMONIC Holds its Second Annual Meeting Online 11/12/2020 — In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the HARMONIC consortium met virtually to discuss the project’s progress and future actions […] First Cancer Patient Included in HARMONIC’s Prospective Study 21/01/2021 — This marks the initiation of the prospective data collection on children treated with modern radiotherapy modalities in the project […] [ News Section ] Visit Our Website Subscribe to the Annual Newsletter #HARMONICproject Share Share Tweet Forward Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal) Tel. +34 932 271 806 info@isglobal.org   Subscribe to our mailings   |   Unsubscribe