The ITACI - Institute for the Treatment of Childhood Cancer is a public hospital linked to the Children's Institute of the Hospital das Clínicas of the Medical School of USP. It began its activities in December 2002, with the objective of offering a more adequate space, as well as new equipment, for the treatment of children and adolescents previously attended at the Children's Institute, through the Onco-Hematology Service.

The construction of ITACI is the result of a great mobilization, initiated in 1999, and a partnership between the Child Foundation, the Solidarity Action Against Childhood Cancer (ASCCI) and the Children's Institute of the Hospital das Clínicas. Today, it is part of one of the most important health complexes in the country, which also includes a research center, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo and medical assistance in more than 20 different pediatric specialties.

ITACI care is free, and most patients are referred by the Children's Institute of the HC or by the units of the SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde). There are also cases of children and young people whose parents seek the institute directly. Of the total number of patients treated by ITACI, 30% usually come from other states and even countries. Another 30% come from other public institutions that can not carry out the treatment of more advanced cases of the disease.

When it started its activities, ITACI had 12 doctors' offices and two rooms for procedures in the outpatient clinic, in addition to 12 hospital beds / day for chemotherapy. The following year, it inaugurated the care in the area of ​​hospitalization of oncology patients, destined to the most serious cases.

In 2012, ten years after its inauguration, ITACI reached a total of 17,374 medical consultations, 13,086 multiprofessional consultations and 4,531 chemotherapies carried out in the year. Oncology occupancy rate was 95.6%, with a mean length of stay of 16.5 days. In the area of ​​transplants, there were 710 medical consultations and a total of 24 bone marrow transplants performed during the year.

Today ITACI is a reference in specialized care for children and adolescents with cancer and other haematological or rare diseases. And it has an important differential in relation to other institutions in this area: the care to children and young people beyond therapeutic possibility, who could not be treated in other hospitals because they are in an advanced state of the disease.

Provide adequate treatment for the largest possible number of children suffering from cancer and haematological diseases.

Connected to the Children's Institute of the Hospital das Clínicas, ITACI has a physical area and a privileged location. It has high-tech equipment, compatible with the needs of this special group of patients that it proposes to attend. In the ambulatory care sector, there are 12 doctors' offices, 4 rooms for multiprofessional care, 2 rooms for small procedures and a dental office, as well as 12 hospital beds / day for chemotherapy.

In the area of ​​hospitalization, ITACI has 19 individual apartments, of which two are compatible with the requirements for performing bone marrow transplants. It also has a procedure room and a large area reserved for recreation, equipped with a toy library.

ITACI focuses its activities, goals, strategies and results on the quality of life of its patients, always considering the healthy side of the child and the adolescent.

Working the playful potential of each one, through play, plastic arts, music and games, is part of the humanized care and offers the patient the simple opportunity to be a child. The leisure area is a space planned with affection to house activities for the inpatient entertainment. All ITACI decoration and signage is designed to offer comfort to patients and their companions.

In 2012, 17,374 medical consultations were performed, 13,086 multiprofessional consultations (SUS + agreements); 24 hematopoietic stem cell transplants (9 autologous, 6 related allogeneic and 9 unrelated allogeneic) and 4,531 chemotherapies.