With an estimated 2.9 million new cases and 1.7 million deaths each year, cancer remains an important public health problem in Europe. In addition, the ageing of the European population will cause these numbers to continue to increase even if age-specific rates remain constant.
The discovery of novel molecular targets for several of the most frequent cancers to date (lung, breast, colorectal, stomach, prostate, pancreatic and bladder cancer) will enable diagnosis at earlier stages of the disease. This will lead to early identification of patients needing treatment, and will have a profound impact on treatment selection for individual patients. In addition, cancer biomarkers may have the potential to serve as targets for the development of new anti-cancer therapies and innovative treatment strategies. Finally, accurate prognostic markers will be useful in assessing the risk of developing metastasis, and will empower the clinician in making decisions about the best possible targeted therapy for the benefit of the patient.
However, Europe's research and development efforts have so far been fragmented and have suffered from the lack of a coherent, strategic vision in translating all this basic knowledge into successful applications and therapies. The aim of this workshop is to identify possible bottlenecks and put forward solutions that boost the commercial value of potentially innovative findings on molecular targets, emanating from European research on cancer.
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www.ccrn.lu/cancer/