TOGAS, SOLACE, PRAIS U Teams Advocate for Follow-Up Funding in EU4H 2025 Programme for Enhanced Cancer Implementation in Europe

Dear Health Authority Representative,
Dear Member of the EU4Health Steering Group,

Ahead of the EU4Health Steering Group meeting that is going to take place on 25 March, we are contacting you on behalf of the SOLACE consortium supported by the European Lung Foundation (ELF) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS; collectively known as Lungs Europe), Lung Cancer Europe (LuCE) and the European Society of Radiology (ESR) as well as the two consortia PRAISE-U and TOGAS, regarding follow-up funding for lung, prostate and gastric cancer screening implementation in Europe after the end of the three current EU4Health-funded projects. 

All three consortia fully support the EC Sub-group on Cancer presentation, emphasizing the importance of sustained funding for the priorities described by the Council’s recommendation on screening as part of Europe’s beating cancer plan. 

The three consortia PRAISE-U, SOLACE and TOGAS collaborate closely on their respective fields prostate, lung and gastric cancer screening respectively since April 2023.

In order to ensure sustainability of the efforts and achievements in these initial three projects, we jointly propose to include follow-up funding in the forthcoming EU4H 2025 programme to take the achievements of the current projects to the next level towards full implementation of lung, prostate and gastric cancer implementation in Europe.
We kindly ask you to intervene in support of this at the next meeting of the EU4H Steering Group on 25 March.

The coordination teams of SOLACE, PRAISE U and TOGAS have identified the following actions as essential elements for our three consortia to further advance the implementation of the EC Cancer Screening Recommendation.

• Continuing annual assessments of implementation status (including pearls and pitfalls) together with the established National Expert Teams for lung, prostate and gastric screening resulting in regularly updated gap-analyses.
• Facilitating implementation research via new pilots and program rollout initiatives: 

1. Monitoring and assessment of on-going implementation studies.
2. Defining needs for and planning of new implementation studies based on gap-analyses.
3. Supporting, coordinating and/or running implementation studies within EU Member States.
4. Linking regional/national implementations studies within EU Member States to reduce duplication and human/financial resources as well as to increase study impact.
5. Regular quality assessment and improvement of implementation research.

•  Collection of data from other pilot studies and initiatives (outside SOLACE, PRAISE U, TOGAS).
•  Collection of benefits/harms data and other data on outcomes, quality assurance and cost-effectiveness relating to lung, prostate and gastric screening programmes from the national level based on the established methods, infrastructure and networks within the 3 pilot studies (SOLACE, PRAISE U and TOGAS).
•  Assessment of benefits/harms data and other data on outcomes, quality assurance and cost-effectiveness relating to lung, prostate and gastric screening programmes by content expert and qualified reporting to EC, EU JRC.
• Provision of expert advice to EC, EU JRC and IARC on the quality of data to be collected from pilot studies and new programs (in relation to the EHDS system) for lung, prostate and gastric screening.
• Connecting content/disease experts for lung, prostate and gastric screening between EU Member State level and EC, EU JRC – via SOLACE, PRAISE U and TOGAS and their European medical societies and patient organisations to ensure broad outreach to corresponding national partner societies and patient organisations.
• Effective dissemination as well as bidirectional knowledge exchange with all EU Member States and relevant candidate countries relating to lung, prostate and gastric screening.
• Close and mutual collaboration with IARC & JRC.

Suggested duration/funding for follow-up actions:

• Period: 3-4 years
• 3 projects related to: Lung, prostate, gastric cancers (1 in each area)
• Optimal funding: 10 M EUR + national funding each; 30 M EUR + national funding in total

All three consortia have been working hard in their respective fields already. The three major achievements of each project to date are listed below:

PRAISE-U – Smart Early Detection of Prostate Cancer

• Performed assessment of barriers to prostate cancer screening in EU Member States using BEST-tool survey  
• Created a living state-of-play document on outcomes, harm, benefit and cost-effectiveness of prostate cancer screening initiatives/practices in EU Member States
• Developed KPIs for screening effectiveness for prostate cancer screening, and country-specific protocols for a flexible risk-adapted screening algorithm

SOLACE – Strengthening the Screening of Lung Cancer in Europe

• Comprehensive first snapshot on state of play and needs relating to Lung Cancer Screening in all 27 EU Member States and 3 EEA countries
• Narrative review-based Guideline on Lung Cancer Screening including structured quality assurance parameters
• Three active SOLACE implementation pilots in 11 EU countries with already 10,000 enrolled participants

TOGAS – Towards Gastric Cancer Screening Implementation in the European Union

• Survey has been developed and launched to collect information on the state of play of gastric cancer prevention in all Member States; furthermore, the target populations and vulnerable population groups have been addressed for their feedback
• Regular high-level meetings with the Member State representatives have been started in 2023, and will be continued in 2024 and 2025
• Three pilot studies addressing various aspects of gastric cancer prevention have been launched

The SOLACE consortium is ready to provide detailed insights into the progress achieved so far as well as to elaborate on the items outlined above in a meeting should it be considered helpful.

We thank you in advance for your attention to this important matter.

Best regards,

The Coordination Teams of SOLACE, PRAISE-U and TOGAS

Foto: Matīss Markovskis