A three-year Pan-European project, known as the PRAISE-U project, aims to reduce morbidity and mortality caused by prostate cancer through smart early detection.
Prostate cancer is the leading and second leading cause of cancer death among men in northern and western Europe. Every year, an estimated 450,000 European men are diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Evidence shows that organised repeated screening leads to early detection that can reduce suffering and dying from prostate cancer.
PRAISE-U hopes to encourage early detection and diagnosis of prostate cancer through customised and risk-based screening programmes.
To carry out the objectives of this project, a multi-disciplinary consortium of 25 institutions centered around Europe’s experts in prostate cancer has been established.
In collaboration with a network of consortium members, PRAISE-U will design a cost-effective early-detection algorithm for prostate cancer screening. This will help to implement smart-early detection programmes to reduce morbidity and mortality by prostate cancer.
Prof. Hein Van Poppel, chair of the EAU Policy Office, said, “Through this project, we want to provide clear guidelines and quality assurance tools that can be used by pilot sites to demonstrate that risk-based approaches are effective, feasible, acceptable and cost effective”.
The PRIASE-U project consists of six work packages. The four core wok packages are designed to obtain knowledge, develop protocols for screening programs, pilot test the developed protocols and evaluate the results.
The two overarching work packages provide a framework that includes coordinating the project and disseminating the results. Each work package builds on the work of the other to ultimately reduce prostate cancer morbidity and mortality, whilst also avoiding overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
Guenther Carl-Ernst, Chairman of Europa Uomo, concluded, “We are delighted to support the implementation of PRAISE-U and we are so glad prostate cancer is finally getting the attention it deserves as the EU’s most common male cancer. For us, every man whose cancer is detected too late, is one man too many”.
Source: European Cancer Organisation
