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Building research competency across low and middle resource settings: an ENGOT initiative and NOGGO mentorship program at the ESGO 2022 in Berlin
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  1. Sara Nasser1,2,
  2. Esra Bilir3,4,
  3. Atallah David5,
  4. Murat Gultekin6 and
  5. Jalid Sehouli1
  1. 1 Department of Gynecology with Center of Oncological Surgery, Charité Universitatsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  2. 2 Gynecologic Oncology, Pan-Arabian Research Society of Gynecological Oncology, Berlin, Germany
  3. 3 Department of Gynecologic Oncology, Koc University School of Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey
  4. 4 Department of Global Health, Koc University Graduate School of Health Sciences, Istanbul, Turkey
  5. 5 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hôtel-Dieu de France University Hospital, Beirut, Lebanon
  6. 6 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Gynaecological Oncology, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sara Nasser, Department of Gynecology with Center of Oncological Surgery, Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; sara.nasser{at}parsgo.org

https://doi.org/10.1136/ijgc-2023-005019

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    The North Eastern Society of Gynecological Oncology (NOGGO) hosted a meeting to further increase the European Network for Gynecological Oncological Trial groups (ENGOT) collaboration in low and middle resource regions. The research groups attending were the Mediterranean and Middle Asian Associations of Gynecological Oncologist Research Group (MEMAGORG), the Middle East and Mediterranean Association of Gynecologic Oncologists (MEMAGO), the Central Asia and East Europe Trial Group (CentEast), the National Society of Medical Oncology in Romania (SNOMR), and the Pan-Arabian Research Society for Gynecologic Oncology (PARSGO) (Figure 1). These groups joined the meeting to present their activities, their potential contributions, and to express their willingness to collaborate.

    Figure 1
    Figure 1

    Logos of the participating societies and research groups.

    MEMAGORG is a French non-profit organization. As an international group, MEMAGORG covers a population of over 655 million. Their major challenges include the availability of medical records, low health expenditure, political instability, tribes with very different dialects and practice, and low public awareness.

    CentEast, covering over 400 million people, brings young and senior researchers together to increase scientific output of the region. CentEast covers the regions with a high annual incidence and mortality due to cervical cancer of approximately 40 000 and 20 000, respectively.1 2 CentEast includes more than seven countries including Turkey, Iran, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. It holds webinars with world-known experts as well as regional experts.

    SNOMR has over 600 members from different fields in healthcare and covers four areas: networking between oncological centers, cancer treatment, research, and education. They have annual, multidisciplinary, and national congresses where they host over 500 participants. Furthermore, they initiated the Young Oncologists’ Annual National Meeting to encourage them to participate more in academia.

    PARSGO is a German non-profit organization covering North Africa, Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa regions. Its main mission is to promote the health and well-being of women with gynecological cancers in the Arab world. The ongoing projects include online multidisciplinary tumor boards and building collaborative research competency across the pan-Arabian region. With over 400 members from 22 Arabic countries, PARSGO is currently collaborating with NOGGO on patient surveys, BRCA screening projects, and involving patient advocates in clinical trial design.

    NOGGO is a German research association for gynecological cancers and conducts clinical trials and patient surveys at national and international levels.3 It is one of the ENGOT research groups. NOGGO provides mentorship and guidance to the above societies in order to attain ENGOT membership and build a solid research infrastructure.

    Overall, all the presented groups have two common goals: (1) to develop a scientific network of gynecologic oncologists; and (2) to be part of or lead high-quality research. Several of the groups have already published their collaborative work. All of the groups stressed their willingness to collaborate with each other for research and educational activities. We strongly support the implementation research to decrease the discrepancies among women with gynecologic cancers at a global level.4

    Ethics statements

    Patient consent for publication

    Ethics approval

    Not applicable.

    Acknowledgments

    We greatly appreciate the valuable input of all the following colleagues and society representatives who were present at the meeting and continue to work together with tireless enthusiasm: Basel Refky, Khaled Gaballa, Hadil Nowieddine, Jolijn Boer, Maren Keller, Dana-Lucia Stanculeanu, Daniela Zob, Elena Braicu, Adelina-Silvana Gheorghe, Ghazi Jerbi, Selma Gadria, Sarah Al-Rubaish, Jawaher Al-Ghamdi and Mazen Bishtawi.

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @esragbilir

    • Contributors SN: writing the manuscript and designing the study. EB: writing the manuscript and designing the study. DA and MG: designing the study. JS: critical revision of the manuscript and supervisor.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.