Amendment to EU Cancer Plan encourages EU member states to consider early detection of prostate cancer
On Thursday 9 December, the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Beating Cancer concluded its final votes on the report on how to strengthen the European Union (EU)’s role in the fight against cancer by implementing Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (EU Cancer Plan).
The spokesperson of the report, Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (FR, see photo), received 1537 amendments to her draft report. The EAU collaborated with patient associations and researchers to reach out to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), who submitted amendments on the issue of early detection of prostate cancer.
The final amendment on early detection, which was voted on unanimously by all MEPs, draws on input received from EAU advocacy. It references important new early detection techniques such as risk-stratified approaches and risk calculators. The amendment specifically encourages EU member states to consider early detection of prostate cancer (along with lung cancer) when the European Commission’s update of the EU Cancer Screening Recommendations will be published next year.
Importantly, the amendment also calls for clear and tangible targets to be set by the European Commission on new cancers. This issue has currently been overlooked by the Commission, which has not included any targets on new cancers in their implementation plan of the EU Cancer Plan.
The report was voted on a number of days after an article on early detection of prostate cancer had appeared in The Parliament Magazine, which was written by MEP Anna-Michelle Asimakopoulou (GR) on the back of advocacy from the Hellenic Urological Association.