The European Commission initiatives on cancer screening and care develop:
- European guidelines on cancer prevention, screening and diagnosis, and
- European quality assurance schemes covering the entire cancer care pathway, from screening to diagnosis, treatment and supportive care (including rehabilitation, follow-up, palliative care and more)
Both European guidelines and European quality assurance schemes are developed for the six cancer sites: breast, cervical, colorectal, gastric, lung, and prostate.
The European Commission initiatives on cancer screening and care:
- draw on the latest available scientific evidence and follow an internationally recognised methodology, which also provides for full transparency and traceability,
- aim to ensure that essential quality care is provided across Europe and is equally accessible regardless of where a person lives or is treated, or their financial resources,
- emphasise patients' needs during the entire care pathway in a comprehensive manner,
- rely on working groups consisting of multidisciplinary teams including healthcare professionals, researchers and patients/caregivers who participate in every phase of the discussion and development of both the guidelines and the quality assurance scheme,
- coordinate with national representatives in countries throughout Europe for feedback, advice and consultation to ensure that national and local circumstances are appropriately considered,
- ensure transparency by managing possible conflicts of interests through annual and specific declarations of interests.
The European Commission Initiative on Breast Cancer (ECIBC) was the first initiative of this type undertaken by the Commission and served as a blueprint for the European Commission Initiative on Colorectal Cancer (ECICC).
The lessons learnt in the development of these pioneering projects influenced the design of subsequent initiatives, including the European Commission Initiative on Cervical Cancer (EC-CvC), the newly launched initiatives: European Commission Initiative on Lung Cancer (EC-LuC), European Commission Initiative on Gastric Cancer (EC-GaC) and the European Commission Initiative on Prostate Cancer (EC-PrC).
The European Commission supports interested countries in the implementation of European guidelines and the European quality assurance schemes.