October is the month to wear pink in support of all those affected by breast cancer. Celebrated globally as the Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM), October 2024 was full of opportunities to promote awareness and fundraise for research on the causes, detection and treatment of a disease that is responsible for approximately one third of the cancers diagnosed in women in the EU.
Acknowledging the challenge that beating cancer has become, the EU increasingly funds research and innovation in this theme. Breast cancer, in particular, is the focus of several innovative projects funded by Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020: the REBECCA project, investigating the chronic conditions and comorbidities associated with breast cancer and its treatment, using real-world data (RWD); RadioVal, developing radiomics tools driven by AI to personalize breast cancer treatment; ONCOVALUE, collecting high-quality RWD to improve breast and lung cancer care; the RESCUER project, predicting patient responses to drug combinations to identify optimal treatment regimens, improving outcomes and enhancing patients’ quality of life; and MammoScreen, of course. At their core, all these initiatives have a patient-centric and personalized approach that will bring important contributions to the implementation of the Europe Beating Cancer Plan.
The European Commission is committed to support member states to increase the uptake of cancer screening programmes. BCAM campaigns can help tackle marked differences in screening participation among countries and population groups.
Social initiatives have an important role to play as well, if 90% of the eligible target population across the EU is to be screened by 2025. For example, Europa Donna – a coalition of non-profit organizations that advocate for European women on breast cancer based in Italy – launched the Breast Health Day campaign in October, to help women improve their breast health. October was also the month chosen by the Breast Cancer in Young Women Foundation (BCYW) to organize the 1st International Conference on Young Women’s Breast Cancer and Health, in recognition that breast cancer in women under 40 is increasing worldwide.
In Portugal, the 2nd edition of the information campaign “Mine is Different from Yours” (in Portuguese) explained in non-expert language that there are various subtypes of breast cancer, each with different diagnoses, prognoses, and approaches. Patient associations, such as EVITA, and the Portuguese League Against Cancer, together with the Portuguese Society of Senology, the Portuguese Society of Oncology, AstraZeneca, and Daiichi Sankyo, partnered in this initiative.
In the region of Castilla-la Mancha, Spain, Dr. Cristina Romero Castellano, Head of the Radiodiagnosis Department at the University Hospital of Toledo and an international leader in the field of breast cancer diagnosis, spoke to the media about the latest scientific advances regarding breast cancer and the innovative projects rolled out in the region, including MammoScreen. She is a natural communicator of science to the general public and not many people know that her enthusiasm for the MammoWave technology paved the way for the pilot study that was the starting point for MammoScreen. Those fluent in Spanish can follow her in a TV interview and podcast conversation where she explains why a safe, inclusive and comfortable technology for the early detection of breast cancer is so important, and how AI, under adequate ethical and regulatory frames, is going to become an ally in the fight against the disease.
