EU invests €3.1 in cancer diagnostics
- 16 August 2010
The European Union is investing €3.1m to develop cancer diagnostics to ensure that breast cancer is detected more quickly and accurately.
The EU will invest the money in the HAMAM (Highly Accurate Breast Cancer Diagnosis through Integration of Biological Knowledge, Novel Imaging Modalities, and Modelling) project which is developing a prototype workstation that integrates multi-modal images from mammography, magnetic resonance imaging and patient information.
The workstation will allow clinicians to compare images side by side while viewing patient information and medical analysis.
Commission vice-president for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes said: "Breast cancer is a condition that touches millions of lives. In Europe about 130,000 women die of breast cancer every year. If more cancers could be detected on time, we could save many thousands of them. So I am very excited by the potential of the HAMAM project’s digital technology to help save lives."
The three year project will ensure that scientists, clinicians, and IT experts work together to collect all the existing patient data in a common database.
The project will also develop clinical software tools that integrate imaging and quantitative data and combine it with personalised risk profiles for developing breast cancer, based on genetic information and family history.
The workstation will be tested in hospitals in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK and will be supported by universities across Europe.
The HAMAM project is the result of a two other EU-funded projects: Screen and Screen-Trial, which have already brought major advances in European breast cancer diagnosis.
The project’s clinical advisory board involves leading experts in breast cancer diagnosis from six EU member states, Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, as well as from the US.
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