ITACI - Childhood Cancer Treatment Institute is a public hospital linked to the Children's Institute of the Hospital das Clínicas, USP Medical School. It started 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 hitherto treated at the Instituto da Criança, through the Onco-Hematology Service.

The construction of ITACI is the result of a major mobilization, initiated in 1999, and a partnership between the Child Foundation, the Solidarity Action Against Child Cancer (ASCCI) and the Children's Institute of Hospital das Clínicas. Today, it is part of one of the most important health care 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.

The attendance at ITACI is free, and most patients are referred by the Instituto da Criança of HC or by SUS units (Unified Health System). 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% in general come from other states and even countries. Another approximately 30% come from other public institutions that are unable to treat more advanced cases of the disease.

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

In 2017, sixteen years after its inauguration, ITACI reached a total of 17,016 medical consultations, 17,913 multiprofessional consultations and 4,990 chemotherapies. The oncology occupancy rate was 90.4%, with an average stay of 8 days. In the area of transplants, there were 710 medical consultations and a total of 40 bone marrow transplants performed during the year.

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