(EU-TOPIA) TOwards imProved screening for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer In All of EUrope

Project summary

Breast, cervical and colorectal cancer cause more than 250,000 deaths each year in Europe. This represents 20% of overall cancer mortality. While substantial progress has been made in the detection and treatment of these cancers, there is a persisting inequality in cancer burden across European countries.
Screening has been introduced in several European countries in an effort to reduce cancer burden. However, these programmes vary considerably and the long-term effectiveness of screening has only been assessed in a few. In an effort to identify opportunities to improve cancer outcomes across Europe, EU-TOPIA (Towards improved screening for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer in all of Europe), a five year project (2015-2020) funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme, is now underway.

The objective of EU-TOPIA is to systematically evaluate and quantify the harms and benefits of the running programmes for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer in all European countries, and identify ways to improve health outcomes and equity for citizens. The project will lead to reduced inequity, reduced number of cancer deaths and over-diagnosed cases, and increase in life years gained and better cost-effectiveness by 2025.