The Marie Curie Legacy Campaign, pioneered by the ESTRO Cancer Foundation (ECF) and ESTRO, is a global initiative to raise awareness of the benefits of radiotherapy (RT) and optimise the provision of radiotherapy in Europe and beyond.
In November 2018, a white paper was launched, calling upon policymakers to help close the gap in utilisation of radiotherapy across Europe, entitled “Radiotherapy: seizing the opportunity in cancer care”.
On behalf of the radiotherapy community, the Marie Curie Legacy Campaign hosted a policy forum to present a five-point plan to help close the gap in availability and utilisation of radiotherapy across Europe, and outline activities underpinning the ESTRO vision. This event was kindly hosted by Lieve Wierinck MEP on 31st of January 2019 at the European Parliament.
During the panel discussion, COCIR highlighted its views on how different stakeholders can work together to address current gaps in access to radiotherapy across Europe.
RT has moved from palliation to curative treatment. This impressive development of clinical outcomes has been achieved despite a small industry sector with only a handful of companies. These opportunities are not reflected in the general healthcare system where RT only constitutes about 7% of cancer care costs, ending in a low utilization of standard treatment protocols. One example is radiotherapy for prostate cancer treatment, which was typically delivered in 39 treatments while now it can be delivered in 5-7 treatments. This obviously makes a huge difference, not only for hospital efficiency but also for patients well-being and quality of life.
There is a need to improve access to current and advanced RT. It is widely recognized that 50% of cancer patients would benefit from this technology.
COCIR is working with its industry members to analyze the RT landscape throughout Europe and beyond. In doing this COCIR observed the following;
COCIR Conclusions and ways to jointly address current gaps
It is critical to have a multistakeholder and multidisciplinary activities based on patient centered approach. Industry is part of the solution but, in order to maximize use of the technologies we need to work together with the continuing support of policymakers at European, national and regional level on the following:
*COCIR will soon publish status on equipment density in Europe and beyond and will include information on installed base and equipment age