Current Initiatives Within the European Union

The President of the European Commission has formally written to the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides, in a Mission letter, entrusting her to “put forward Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan to support Member States to improve cancer prevention and care.  This should propose actions to strengthen our approach at every key stage of the disease: prevention, diagnosis, treatment and life as a cancer survivor and palliative care.  There should be a close link with the Research Mission on Cancer in the Future Horizon Europe Programme” (205).  The EU Mission Board on Cancer has recently released its interim recommendations (15).

The European Union has initiated a new Joint Action Against Cancer known as iPAAC, Innovative Partnership for Action Against Cancer (12).  The mission of iPAAC is to build upon the deliveries of the CanCon Joint Action and to implement innovative approaches to cancer control. Implementation and sustainability of cancer control actions will be the main deliverable. The iPAAC work packages include coordination, dissemination and evaluation and integration in national policies and sustainability.  More specifically, they will focus on cancer prevention, genomics, cancer information and Registries, challenges to cancer care, innovative therapies in cancer and the governance of integrated and comprehensive cancer care.

The Lancet Oncology Groundshot (14) recognises the need to identify the research gaps that currently exist within Europe, with a specific focus on Central and Eastern Europe. It will employ a data informed approach to determine the key approaches that need to be taken to enhance cancer research and its translation and feed into the EU Cancer Mission (15).

Back to Medical Literature and Evidence for the European Code of Cancer Practice