Cancer research in Africa continues to grow. Unfortunately this growth is limited to upper middle income countries in Africa. However, we continue to observe increased activity in some LMIC on the continent. Current research domains may not be of importance to address existing health system gaps . AORTIC as a strong collective organization should be at the forefront of steering the research agenda towards creating solutions , improving research landscape, self- sufficiency to develop pragmatic cancer control recommendations. This session is geared towards brainstorming ideas that will lead to AORTIC supporting its members uptake the task of developing researchers significant to our fight against cancer.

Despite being a demographically young continent, the African reality is that cancer is now a significant and growing development issue with a rapid increase in cancer burden across all countries.

The pattern of cancer manifestations varies across the continent, we would therefore expect that the cancer research outputs from Africa will vary greatly by country, depending on their wealth and the relative burden from the disease. We may also expect a different distribution of its portfolio from that in, for example, Europe between the male and female cancers, and in the different research domains. We might also consider that the higher cancer burden on women might attract more women into cancer research.

This session will report on the methodology and outcomes of a comprehensive bibliographic analysis spanning 23,500 plus papers published in the 12-year period 2009-2020. We invite you to join the presentation of the findings and share your views during the discussion on addressing the cancer research gap in Africa.

We aim to build understanding among African cancer researchers of important data gaps and the importance of focusing research questions that are paramount for the African setting. We will generate a proceedings report from the session as a step towards an African list of priority research topics and challenges as a starting point for further advocacy efforts.