- Posted on 5 Jun 2026
- 3-minute read
Dr Darren Haywood has been recognised with a leading international award for his work developing a tool to help tailor care to the needs of people affected by cancer.
The MASCC COG-IMPACT tool is the only tool available to assess the unmet needs faced by people with cancer-related cognitive impairment – a pervasive condition where cancer, its treatments, and cancer-related distress impact peoples’ thinking, reasoning, and memory.
Dr Darren Haywood, a Chancellor’s Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney who led the team developing the tool, has taken out the 2026 Hiroomi and Setsuko New Investigator Award from the International Psycho-Oncology Society.
“The impact of my work is emphasising the importance of tailoring care for a person's unique challenges and needs,” Dr Haywood said.
“A one-size-fits-all approach to care for cancer survivors doesn’t recognise that people deserve care that is centred on them. Care needs to be tailored to the person's circumstances, what matters most to them, and the challenges of their environments.”
The MASCC COG-IMPACT tool brings this person-centred approach in the form of a questionnaire that explores key questions around cognitive impairment and its impacts on people’s lives.
“This is the first tool for healthcare professionals that goes beyond looking only at cognitive impairment and explores the unmet needs people may experience from it in their daily lives.”
Dr Darren Haywood
UTS Chancellor's Research Fellow
“It helps elucidate some of the unmet needs and challenges individuals may be facing and helps clinicians in directing appropriate care tailored to that individual's challenges," Dr Haywood said.
Currently available on the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer website, the tool already informs the support of an estimated 500,000 cancer survivors annually across 12 countries worldwide.
“For survivors, the tool realises their experiences in a form that helps show that they’re facing real challenges that deserve support,” Dr Haywood said.
“I hope it helps them feel that their cancer-related cognitive impairment isn’t something that they have to just deal with by themselves. They can, and should, get tailored support.”
The Hiroomi and Setsuko New Investigator Award honours a new research investigator for their outstanding contributions to the field of psycho-oncology internationally. Dr Haywood is the 5th Australian to have won the award over its 30-year history.
Researcher
Chancellor's Research Fellow, Faculty of Health
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