#EAPM: Lung cancer screening debate moves to Milan in mid-May

On the 15th, a separate meeting entitled Innovation, Guidelines and Screening: The Case of Lung Cancer - Can Italy lead the way?will take place at the Fondazione Umberto Veronesi in Piazza Velasca, Milan, Italy.

The earlier Alliance conference, entitled ‘Innovation, Guidelines and Screening: The Case of Lung Cancer’ took a close look at lung-cancer screening from a multi-stakeholder point of view, with speakers drawn from all across Europe. It also focused on many of the other issues that affect personalised medicine today. The Milan event on the 15th will perform a similar task, but at national level.

Multi-stakeholders attending will include patients, healthcare professionals, researchers and economists.  Please see the agenda.

The Alliance’s presence in Italy is an example of the multi-stakeholder group following up on its stated commitment to help to bring alignment between EU activities and the national levels, as well as between EU member states. This is an EAPM policy and priority that exemplifies its SMART Outreach approach. SMART stands for Smaller Member states And Regions Together and has seen the Alliance hold high-level meetings in several EU countries, as well as helping to launch ‘local’ personalised medicine alliances (including in Italy).

The event in Milan is being organised by the Università degli Studi di Milano, in co-operation with the Fondazioni Umberto Veronesi. The founder of the latter, Umberto Veronesi, died at the age of 90 and was a leading light in fighting and preventing the terrible disease of breast cancer, as well as an activist in anti-tobacco campaigns.

The forum builds on a conference held last year, in the same city, that focused on making access to personalised medicine a reality for patients.

The cornerstone of the event is to align efforts internationally via a central focus to co-ordinate this effort geared towards empowering Europe’s patients and introducing guidelines for lung-cancer screening.

Indeed, the Alliance is preparing a White Paper on lung-cancer screening and guidelines for the Milan forum. This will back up the fact that findings in both Europe and the US strongly suggest that lung-cancer screening saves lives.

Ideally, says EAPM, guidelines could help to tether costs, by bringing in improvements to the efficiency of screening methodologies and, thus, programmes themselves.

EAPM believes that the EU should put guidelines in place that will allow member states to set-up quality assured early detection programmes for lung cancer.

Gabriella Pravettoni, Professor of Cognitive and Decision Making Psychology at the University of Milan, said ahead of the event in Italy: “Myself and my colleagues are delighted to have EAPM back in Milan, where we can build on the good work already done last year.”

Professor Pravettoni added: “It is vital for Europe’s patients that personalised medicine is integrated into healthcare systems both at national and regional level.

“Empowering patients is key and the University of Milan has established, for the first time in Italy, a “Chair of Humanity”, a course on the humanisation of care. This is aimed at training physicians to listen and relate to patients in an existential, emotional and social dimension.

“We are very proud of that, here,” she added.

Doctor Giulia Veronesi, chief of the Robotic Thoracic Surgery Unit, Division of Thoracic and General Surgery, at the Milan-based Humanitas Research Hospital, said: “We need to raise awareness of the need for agreed recommendations over lung-cancer screening. On top of this, we need to improve the knowledge of policymakers and world health agencies to formulate effective guidelines on the international stage.

“Not only that,” added Dr. Veronesi, “We must work across national borders to ensure cooperation and collaboration and advance parallel work done by professional groups, patient groups, health-care funders, pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions to a new level.”

EAPM co-chair and former European health commissioner David Byrne said: “There is a need in the fast-moving area of healthcare for a focus on preventative care and personalised health care. This is something the Alliance has always been geared towards and the meeting in Milan can only help to further our goals and those of our fellow stakeholders.”

Last year in the Italian city, as this, high-level stakeholders in personalised medicine from across Italy and the rest of the EU met to move forward with this innovative form of medical intervention tailored to the specific needs of individual patients.

Next to EAPM, other leading organizations joining the Forum on the 16-17th include the European Cancer Patient Coalition, the Stockholm School of Economics, and the European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer.

As well as EAPM’s White Paper on screening, delegates at the three-day Forum will publish a Call to Action. This will remind the EU and its member states of the EPAAC and CanCon initiatives and call on the EU and those member states to collaborate.

CanCon followed in the wake of EPAAC. It is led mainly by member states with the support of the EU, and also involves other stakeholders, including NGOs working across Europe.

CanCon has the goal of reducing cancer incidence by 15% by 2020 and the Call to Action urges those member states that have signed up to various objectives to waste no time in implementing the recommendations as agreed.

Later in the year, EAPM will hold a pan-European, multi-disciplinary Congress specific to the fast-moving field of personalised medicine. It will take place from 27-30 November.

Entitled ‘Personalising Your Health: A Global Imperative!’, it will be held in partnership with Queen’s University Belfast and Visit Belfast.