Policy
Cancer-related fatigue: Might research into long-Covid help find causes and cures?
Long-term emotionally and physically debilitating fatigue is a fact of daily life for many who have had cancer. Awareness is low, causes mysterious, and physicians are often sceptical or plead powerlessness – even though a growing body of research attests…
Preventing alcohol-related cancers in Europe: lessons from three countries
Alcohol can be bad for your health. Most people know that. But what many people have yet to grasp is that ‒ like smoking tobacco ‒ drinking alcohol can significantly raise their risk of developing and dying from a wide…
Decolonising cancer research: why it matters, what can be done
When cancer epidemiologist and medical doctor Nirmala Bhoo-Pathy returned to Malaysia in 2011 after completing her PhD in cancer epidemiology in the Netherlands, she hadn’t expected the move to negatively affect her research prospects. As it turns out, she was…
Lung cancer screening: time to act on the evidence
“It’s extraordinary that screening for the biggest cancer killer is not available in most of Europe," says Anne Marie Baird, President of Lung Cancer Europe (LuCE). “Lung cancer causes more deaths in Europe than breast, colorectal and cervical cancers combined,…
Trust me: I’m a surgical oncologist!
Surgery has been the mainstay for treating solid tumours since the dawn of cancer treatment, and recent decades have seen a huge increase in the complexity and multidisciplinary demands of carrying out cancer operations. So it can come as a…
PSA population screening is back in favour: here’s why
Five years ago, the idea of national screening programmes for prostate cancer had gone cold. The benefits of PSA (prostate specific antigen) blood testing, introduced as a screening tool in the 1980s, had long been fiercely debated. But by 2015…
Older, frail patients are still being let down by the regulators
Hans Wildiers is frustrated. “This drug is well-tolerated in older persons – this is a very frequent conclusion in publications. And it is often not a correct conclusion,” says the immediate past president of SIOG, the International Society of Geriatric…
Not too little, not too much… a lesson for cancer prevention from ancient civilisations
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.” This quotation from Hippocrates pops up regularly in writings advocating a…
Beating cancer is complex – our messaging must be clear
A window of opportunity is opening up across Europe to reverse the ever-rising trend of new cancers and improve outcomes for patients everywhere. It’s been brought about in part by a major shift in favour of Europe taking on a…
Croatia’s cancer plan showcases the value of European cancer collaboration
Croatia has caught up with the rest of the EU in adopting a national cancer control plan. Sophie Fessl looks at how using EU guidance drawn from experiences of other member states helped them ensure it is relevant, patient-centred, and…