Florian Scotté’s Vision: MASCC’s Dedication to Improving Cancer Supportive Care

Each year, MASCC joins forces with the International Society for Oral Oncology (ISOO) to host the preeminent international meeting on supportive care in cancer. This multinational and interdisciplinary meeting brings together professionals and trainees from diverse fields to engage, collaborate and learn.

The 2024 Annual Meeting was held in collaboration with the French affiliate organization AFSOS, and took place in the charming city of Lille, France, June 27-29.

Professor Florian Scotté, a medical oncologist, is at the forefront of supportive care. As the President of MASCC (Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer), he shapes strategies to improve patient well-being during cancer treatment.Before joining Gustave Roussy, Prof. Scotté established a chemotherapy day hospital at Georges Pompidou European Hospital. He also created a supportive care barometer to assess interventions across cancer centers.

At Foch Hospital, he leads the medical oncology and supportive care department. His research focuses on minimizing treatment-related side effects, including using cooling gloves to protect patients’ skin and nails. Prof. Scotté’s work benefits patients worldwide, emphasizing the importance of supportive oncology.

Professor Florian Scotte was interviewed by OncoDaily at the MASCC 2024 meeting, which we covered on-site for the first time. Joining him was Dr. Martin Harutyunyan, who provided valuable insights into supportive cancer care.

Hello, my name is Florian Scote. I’m a medical oncologist in France at Dussard-Roussy and the new President of MASCC, the Multinational Association of Supporting Skin Cancer. It’s a great privilege and great honor to become MASCC President because, as you probably remember, we have so many great leaders as past Presidents of MASCC.

The last one was Maria Moesberg, immediate past President. Then Andrew Davis, Raj Jhalla, and before we had Mathieu Arpo, we had Jean-Claude Cercy, our Founder of MASCC, the young Herstead, and so many others like Richard Wallaplus, David Rohr, for example. So, the plan of action for the next two years as President is, first of all, being a real team with all the leaders, with all the members of MASCC, because we are a team, we are a family, a multidisciplinary team with nurses, dentists, pharmacists, physicians, medical doctors, surgeons, etc.

We are all together fighting against cancer and for quality of life. And the best achievement for us is to have a better quality of life for our patients. So, the plan of action is, first of all, being a team, being all together.

It means that we need to have more meetings from the different commissions, committees, that we have to work harder for the different objectives that we have. We need to get, to maintain, but to improve also financial resources for MASCC, in order to have, as you can probably see during that meeting, a very great exhibit center with many sponsors. It means that supportive care means something in the world.

It means that supportive care is now really important for the patients and for quality of care of the patients worldwide. So, financial resources, then we have also to make more visible MASCC and then more visible supportive care in cancer. So, we need to go more deeply to the social media, so you need to deliver our messages more broadly.

We have to be more visible to healthcare professionals, but also to caregivers and patients, and to politicians, regulators, associations, and other specialties in medicine, like cardiology, ophthalmology, and nephrology, for example. And last but not the least, we need members. So, each member of MASCC becomes an ambassador of MASCC.

It means that each member has to call for new members, and you have to increase the number of members, the membership, and the objective is reaching more than 5,000 delegates, more than 5,000 members in two years, in 2026. So, I’m sure that you will receive the message of supportive care. I’m sure that you will become, if you’re not today, a new member of MASCC.