Events

15 December, 16-17.15 CET

Objective: The objective of this virtual event is to link EU CANCER PLAN and Beca Report with Country specific recommendations in order to reduce the Inequalities for (lung) cancer patients between and within Member States with focus on Eastern Europe.

Background:
Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan is one of the key pillars of the European Health Union project. For the successful implementation of the Plan, significant multi-level cooperation between institutions, member states, regional and local authorities as well as social partners and civil society organisations is required, in particular to bridge the important disparities in cancer prevention and access to cancer care between and within European countries. These inequalities have a deep impact on cancer incidence rates, survival and mortality across the EU. Strengthening EU cooperation to boost cancer research, innovation and new technologies in the fight against cancer and health inequalities is one of the underlying tools to ensure the highest standards of cancer care and equitable access for all Europeans, no matter where they live, and therefore one of the priorities of the BECA draft report.

The BECA draft report provides a wide range of concrete actions and tools in the fields of health and cancer research where the EU can complement and support national efforts to defeat cancer.

26 October, 4pm UK

Innovative health technologies are often enthusiastically viewed as game changers however their costs are sharply criticised. Take, for example, CAR T-Cell therapy, which has a price of up to 500,000 euro per person. This raises many questions. For example, what is a fair price for a medicine? How should the price be related to the effectiveness or the number of end-users? What about the risks taken by the company to get the therapy to market? What about the risks taken by the end-user who use the medicine? And what about the risks taken by the payer? Is it unrealistic to think that there is a solution that would be fair to all stakeholders? And how can we ensure that the whole system is financially sustainable in the long term?

13 October, 2021

Timely access to optimal treatment has great promise for significantly improving outcomes for cancer patients. For instance, the early diagnosis and treatment of skin cancer provides a 99% chance of 5-year survival – yet in later stages, the odds drop to just 27%. As well, the length of time it takes for cancer treatments to reach patients is vitally important to European and national cancer policies, including Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.

Current political debates around access cancer medicines often overlook the interplay of factors that cause suboptimal treatment rates. Ineligibility requirements, late diagnostic testing, treatment delays, poorly defined clinical guidelines, and resource constraints worsen a patient’s access to timely and adequate treatments.

How can we ensure that patients are diagnosed promptly and can access treatment in a timely manner? Why does reimbursement not always correlate to access to innovative treatments across Europe? How should we prioritize treatment rates in cancer plans?

28 September, 2021, 2-3pm CET

In Europe, 2.4 million patients undergo high-risk surgery every year and while surgery is safer today than ever – it is not totally risk free, Evidence suggest that death during surgery is now rare but the 30 days after the procedure are crucial – more than 1 in 100 adults (1.5%) die in the first 30 days following their operation. During high-risk surgery it is vital that blood continues to flow to organs. If blood pressure drops, and organs do not get enough blood, the higher the risk of severe postoperative complications, such as myocardial injury, acute kidney injury, and increased mortality, These drops in blood pressure are known as intraoperative hypotension (IOH) and are common – particularly in more senior patients. As little as a minute of IOH can increase the risk of patient harm or death and there is low awareness of this urgent issue among patients, clinicians, and policy makers. However, if IOH is effectively monitored and managed, many of these issues can be reduced or avoided. In addition, the need to improve perioperative care has been accentuated by the pandemic, which has put pressure on hospital capacity.

24 August 2021, 4pm UK

What do developments of smart hospitals and smart homes mean for patients, health professionals and policy makers? Better diagnostics? Better medicines? Greater efficiency? Nowadays use of the term artificial intelligence (AI) elicits all sorts of reactions, from enthusiasm to fear. How much are these reactions well-founded? One thing is clear: when it comes to health, AI can be applied in myriad ways, from all of the departments in a hospital to all corners of one’s home.

Given the patchy performance of public health approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the benefit of hindsight, how can we better harness available data to improve decision making for improved societal health, cost management, and patient outcomes – better safety of medicines, control of long-term conditions and solutions for rare/orphan diseases?

24 November, 2020, 8.30 CET

As roughly 40% of all cancers are considered preventable, prevention is high on the political agenda. Vaccination programs, environmental policies and supporting healthy lifestyles feature prominently all over the world, including within Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. When prevention works, it is a cost-effective element of any long-term cancer control strategy. Little is known, however, about the actual effects and causal links between preventive policies on cancer incidence, and mortality. Evidence linking prevention to verified results is scarce, and often unclear regarding which policies and programs work, and to what degree. How strong is the case for cancer prevention? How should prevention be incorporated into national cancer plans? And ultimately, what is the role of prevention in evidenced-based health policy decision-making?

14 October, 2020, 8.30 CET

Centralizing cancer care has been a hot topic for quite some time. Many argue that hospitals are often too small and treat too few patients. Only by pooling resources and specialists in comprehensive cancer centers could high-quality care and equal access to innovative therapies be guaranteed. Yet, the Covid pandemic has shown that reducing the number of hospital beds may also be problematic for the quality of care. Broad availability of hospitals can help intercept epidemic outbreaks and maintain medical expertise – also in oncology. How should the future of inpatient cancer care look like in Europe? Is centralization still the way forward, or do we need to maintain broad operational readiness and expertise?.

Wednesday, 30 September, 20.00 – 21.00 CET (2.00 pm – 3.00 pm, US Eastern)

Given the huge societal and economic impacts of the coronavirus in Europe, everyone is hopeful that COVID-19 vaccines will soon be available – but what happens next? According to an Economist report from August 2018, in the past decade vaccination rates in some European countries have often fallen below those in parts of Africa. It claims that Italy, France and Serbia have lower child-vaccination rates than Burundi, Rwanda and Senegal. After billions of Euros have been invested by governments, what will happen if many EU citizens are unwilling to take the vaccine? What can be done now to ensure that those who need the COVID-19 vaccine most are treated first when the vaccines are available? Furthermore, how do EU member states plan on measuring and monitoring the safety of vaccines that have been rapidly put onto the market ̶ and who will ultimately be accountable? And from the patient’s perspective, how can we build trust around the EU’s management of COVID-19, which has become increasingly politicised?

A series of 3 webinars focussed on ‘The Role of Health Data in the Post Covid-19 Era’

Goal of the webinar series:
The webinars will present an opportunity to explore utilisation of Real World Data/Real World Evidence in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries, as well as to compare and analyse wider European and Spanish RWD/RWE initiatives in the spirit of creating collaborations and strengthening relationships.

9 September, 2020, 8.30 CET

Cancer is still often considered a death sentence. It is the second leading cause of death globally and will soon overtake cardiovascular disease as the number one killer. As a result, the main effect that people expect treatments to have is to prolong overall survival either through curing the disease or by slowing its progression and reducing cancer-related symptoms. Indeed, great progress has been made in recent years and cancer mortality grows at a much slower pace than cancer incidence.

This webinar intends to discuss different perspectives on how funding decisions should be approached depending on the setting of the disease.