Filenews 21 September 2022
A proposal for a new cancer screening system, which seeks to improve the early detection of cancer, was tabled today by Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides on behalf of the Commission.
The recommendations include an increase in testing for six types of cancer that are estimated to make up a total of 55% of all cases diagnosed in the EU each year: expansion of breast cancer screenings to more ages, regular tests for cervical cancer, screening tests for colorectal cancer, lung cancer screening programmes; providing the possibility of screening for prostate cancer and the introduction of tests for stomach cancer in areas where there are many cases.
"If we do not act now, cancer will become the leading cause of death in the EU by 2035", stressed Ms. Kyriakides, noting that in order to change this trend, the detection of cancer will have to be improved.
"We need to look more and we need to look better," he said, recalling that 20 years have passed since the adoption of the recommendations currently in place for screening, while medicine and technology have made significant progress.
The Commissioner also announced that the Commission will provide additional funding of €100 million to improve research in screening, through the EU4Health and Horizon Europe programmes, and will propose additional funding through EU4Health funds for 2023.
In addition, Member States will be able to use funds from the Cohesion Funds, and in particular from the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund Plus to co-finance the necessary investments.
Ms Kyriakides said she expects member states to adopt the recommendations within the Council by December this year. Proposals to update the recommendations on screening are a key pillar of Europe's Beating Cancer Plan presented in February 2021, he explained.
In particular, the Commission proposes the following changes regarding screenings for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer:
- extending breast cancer screening, which currently covers women aged 50 to 69, to include women aged 45 to 74, and member states are also advised to consider specific diagnostic measures, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), for women with particularly dense breasts;
-priority should be given to human papillomavirus (HPV) tests for women aged 30-65 years, every five years instead of the Pap test, depending on the hpv vaccination status,
-perform an immunochemical stool test for colorectal cancer in people aged 50-74 years instead of looking for latent bleeding in the faeces, in order to determine whether further endoscopy/colonoscopy examination is needed.
The Commission also recommends the introduction of screening tests for lung, prostate and, in some cases, stomach cancer:
- Lung cancer: the Commission recommends introducing screening for smokers and former smokers aged 50 to 75 who have stopped smoking in the last 15 years, and have a history of smoking of 30 pack-years (equivalent to 20 cigarettes per day for 30 years).
- Prostate cancer: the Commission proposes the introduction of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test for men up to 70 years of age, in combination with additional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a further test.
- Stomach cancer: in countries or regions with higher rates of stomach cancer and mortality from it, the Commission proposes to introduce screening for the bacteria Helicobacter pylori, which can cause stomach ulcers and, in some cases, lead to stomach cancer, and recommends screening of precancerous stomach ulcers from other causes.
As Ms. Kyriakides said, among the goals of the cancer plan is to ensure that 90% of those who are entitled to be tested for breast cancer, cervical cancer and colorectal cancer are tested by 2025. Today coverage is uneven, ranging between 6% and 90% for breast cancer and between 20% and 70% for colorectal cancer, he noted.
Ms. Kyriakides explained that the COVID-19 pandemic in the last three years "has shown us how fragile our daily life can be and how critical health is for our citizens and for the proper functioning of our societies", as in 2020 three times more people died from cancer, a total of 1.3 billion, compared to those who died of coronavirus, a total of 420 thousand people.
"It is a fact that in most EU Member States, cancer screening programmes have largely either stopped or slowed down," due to the pandemic, he continued, noting that an estimated 100 million cancer screening tests were not carried out in Europe during the pandemic.
