Päivi Lähteenmäki

Chief of the Swedish Childhood Cancer Quality Registry.

Chief of the Childhood Cancer Epidemiology group (Registergruppen)

MD, PhD, Docent

ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5500-9606

Areas of expertise: Pediatric and adolescent hematology and oncology; Late-effects of cancer treatment at an early age; Quality improvement and registration.

Publications: 145 peer reviewed original articles in international and 14 in domestic journals.

During the years, Lähteenmäki has served as the chairman or a board member of the Nordic Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology as well as the Finnish Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. She is also a board member of PanCare. In 2012-2014, She was the chair of a group planning the establishment of childhood cancer late-effect clinics in Finland. In 2016, she was awarded the Finnish Cancer Association Price, Oncologist of the year in Finland.

Lähteenmäki graduated from the Medical School at the University of Turku in 1984, where she also specialized in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. She defended her thesis in 1999 on Effects of childhood cancer on patients and their families - physical and psychosocial aspects. She worked in 2002 as a post-doc Clinical and Research Fellow at Bristol Sick Children’s Hospital BMT Unit, Bristol, UK. Subsequently, she has worked as a Consultant at the Department of Pediatrics, University of Turku.

Since 2008, she has been Docent (Adjunct Professor) of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Turku, and Head of the Division of Pediatric and Adolescent Hematology/Oncology at Turku University Hospital in Turku, Finland. Currently she works also as the Chief of the Swedish Childhood Cancer Registry at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

Lähteenmäki´s major research interest lies in the late-effects of childhood cancer. In year 2000, she founded her own research group and initiated a long-term research project called “Health and Quality of Life in Patients with Early Age Onset Cancer” including the epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention, and overall societal impact of the late sequelae of cancer and its treatments. Lähteenmäki has been actively involved in international research collaboration. In 2006, she started a collaboration with NIH funded GCCT (Genetic consequences of cancer therapies) consortium, followed by a Nordic project ALiCCS (Adult life in childhood cancer survivors), and an EU funded project PanCareSurFup (PanCare Childhood and Adolescent Cancer Survivor Care and Follow-Up Studies). In 2018, two new Nordic collaborations started (PACCS Physical activity in childhood cancer survivors; PACS Pregnancy associated cancer). She is also a principal investigator in NOPHO-CARE (A Nordic study on epidemiology, biology, treatment and survival of children with cancer and severe hematological diseases) as well as in the BarncancerBaSe, study on epidemiology and late-effects of childhood cancer. Most recent project where Lähteenmäki is involved, are EU-project e-QuOL,   and EMPOWER-project financed by the Finnish Academy.

Since 2008, clinical pediatric hematology and oncology at the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University of Turku.