Over the last two years, the aptly-named BEACON project has charted a clearer path towards better cancer care in Europe, and has created a roadmap that can transform the disparate cancer centres across the continent into a coherent force to combat this deadly disease.

The key to achieving improved care lies in maximising the contribution from Europe’s many cancer centres, which concentrate expertise at local or regional level.

They are essential components in achieving the targets set out in the European Beating Cancer plan – to improve the lives of 3 million cancer patients... and of their many loved ones. 

But their potential is not yet fully realised, because of the widely-varying capacity of these centres – not just in volume, but also in the level of care they can offer.

What BEACON has shown is how these vital centres can scale up their performance,  for their own benefit and the benefit of cancer patients. BEACON’s meticulously detailed roadmap now not only precisely indicates the current status of cancer centres across Europe, but also illuminates the routes to still-better delivery.

The roadmap tackles head-on some of the constant challenges in securing the best cancer care, which range from difficulties in accessing information, to accessing the most effective treatment options, and from research that is insufficiently integrated with innovative care, to ensuring supervision by networked, multidisciplinary cancer care teams.

It now helps patients in finding the best centres, providers in sharing resources and expertise, researchers in sharing data, and policymakers in aligning funding allocation with patients' priorities.

The project’s strength derives in large part from its collaborative approach, bringing together the principal stakeholders in cancer care: patients, healthcare providers, researchers and policymakers.

BEACON builds on patients’ responses to surveys about their needs when attempting to make decisions over screening, diagnosis, treatment, post-treatment quality of life, and end-of-life care.

Its mapping has made available new power in exploiting data from registries, and combining it with clinical and  -omics data along with social determinants of health endpoints.

At the project’s final conference -on 22-23 October, in Milan, its  principal stakeholders will reflect on the achievements and focus on assuring the future sustainability of the work.

As Gabriella Pravettoni, Director of Psychology at the European Cancer Institute (IEO) Milan, the scientific coordinator for the project, will stress, “Cancer centres are the bedrock of tackling cancer at the public institution level. This is one of these EU projects that has, in its short life, made a real difference. The framework it has set out will continue to drive major improvements in Europe’s cancer care for years ahead, with regular integration of new data even after its two years of funding is over.”

She will pay particular tribute to Roberto Grasso, who has played such a crucial role in leading the project under her guidance. And she will reflect on the long road that still lies ahead for cancer care, and on which the BEACON project will continue to ease the way: “Despite significant advances in cancer therapy, there is still a long road ahead to improve disparities in cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, quality of life, management of survivorship, and palliative care at the end of life.”

The conference programme is available HERE

Further details HERE