PRAISE-U consortium meets in Rotterdam: First lessons from pilots and next steps

The PRAISE-U consortium convened in Rotterdam for a two-day meeting on the 8th and 9th of September to share early results, tackle implementation challenges, and discuss the future of prostate cancer (PCa) screening in Europe.

Day one, chaired by Professor Hendrik Van Poppel, focused on outcomes from pilot sites in Galicia, Poland, Althaia (Manresa), Lithuania, and Ireland. Professor Monique Roobol opened with a recap of the consortium’s progress, followed by Meike van Harten on preliminary clinical results from all pilot sites.

Then came the experience from the leads of all pilot teams, where several topics and themes were discussed. Pilots had been asked to consider what had gone well, but also to consider key challenges and barriers in their settings. 

In terms of inviting men to screening, a mix of methods have been used across different sites, including physical letters as well as text messages and invitations through the EHR applications.  Primary care is directly involved in PSA tests in some cases, while in others, men are set to screening centres, and in one pilot (Ireland), the homebased self-test is being tested. In Poland, invitations are complemented with the Urobus, which is a bus that goes to remote communities to take the first test. This is intended to facilitate outreach to hard to reach rural and mining populations. 

The PRAISE U screening algorithm has been designed to be adaptable to local health care settings and countries, depending on local resources. AI was defined as a promising tool that could support reading of MRIs and even pathology slides (for biopsies) and to assist with programme management and implementation of the risk stratified model. Overall, the feedback on the algorithm was positive and promising for the final outcomes to be expected beginning 2026.

A strong barrier theme was communication, with screening participants themselves, but also with local and national decision makers and screening agencies. Better strategies are needed to explain overdiagnosis, manage expectations, and reassure those not invited. Collaborative user boards (CUB) were discussed as an interesting format for gathering insights from each pilot setting. These CUBs are essentially focus groups involving multi stakeholders (screening participants, healthcare professionals, screening agencies, decision makers and healthcare providers, for example).

The day ended with cross-border reflections from Sweden, Czech Republic, and Estonia, highlighting lessons learned from their pilots. Swedish regions are working together on organised prostate cancer testing, and some regions will enter their fourth year of implementation. Czechia is running a national programme using the regular GP check-ups as the basis for the first PSA tests - they are using this to evaluate uptake and also alignment to the screening process, and will continue to learn from the data how to do things better.

Day two turned to dialogue between pilots and the evaluation teams from Erasmus University Medical Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, Universiteit Gent, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Arunah Chandran (IARC) chaired these interactive and engaging sessions exploring how evaluators can support pilots and what pilots need in return. The exchange on psycho-social aspects, cost effectiveness, the clinical algorithm and health system scalability and sustainability set the stage for the future evaluation process. This exchange reinforced that evaluation frameworks must stay grounded in real-world practice. 

Jarka Bloemberg and Sorcha Lanigan updated the group on communications, underlining the importance of telling a coherent PRAISE-U story to both policymakers and the public.

Looking beyond the project, Sarah Collen chaired a session on sustainability. Monique Roobol shared synergies with EUCanScreen, while Susan Evans Axelsson and Roobol presented PRAISE-U+ and the EAU UroEvidenceHub, opening opportunities for long-term data sharing. 

The Rotterdam meeting underscored both the progress and complexity of implementing prostate cancer screening. Evidence of cost-effectiveness will be crucial, as will stronger communication strategies that bridge population-level goals and individual expectations.

With the end of the project coming up early 2026, it was clear that all stakeholders are very committed to collect the data needed to convince politicians to stop opportunistic screening and start using the PRAISE-U algorithm. Most of all, the event highlighted the value of collective learning across borders. PRAISE-U is not only a research initiative—it is a European effort to design credible, sustainable, and prostate cancer screening.