Call for proposals to pilot and implement cancer screening programmes for prostate cancer

The expected results and impact are:

• regularly updated reporting and gap analysis to guide Member States;
• enhanced knowledge on the current state of play and feasible and successful modalities of prostate cancer screening programmes, including the integration of new AI-based screening technologies to improve detection and reduce disparities across Member States;
• further roll-out of prostate cancer screening;
• further availability of prostate cancer screening programmes across the Union based on European Guidelines, as available.

This action will contribute to the implementation of prostate cancer screening programmes, in a stepwise approach to ensure the gradual and appropriate planning, piloting, and roll-out of the screening programmes within national priorities, as called for in the 2022 Council Recommendation and upcoming European Guidelines on cancer screening. The use of AI in ongoing (pilot) programmes shall be assessed, and the potential use of AI, where feasible, further be explored. Synergies with actions implementing the European Cancer Imaging Initiative, in particular the Cancer Image Europe platform, shall be explored. Potential synergies with the project stemming out of the “Call for proposals on advancing the adoption of artificial intelligence in health” (DI-g-24-76 from 2024 EU4Health work programme) shall be explored.

The action may include the following activities:

• facilitating implementation research via new pilots and programme rollout initiatives through:
  • monitoring and assessment of on-going implementation studies;
  • defining needs for and planning of new implementation studies based on gap analyses, building on deliverables of the PRAISE-U project;
  • supporting, coordinating and running implementation studies within Member States;
  • linking regional/national implementations studies within Member States to reduce duplication and human/financial resources as well as to increase study impact;
  • regular quality assessment and improvement of implementation research.
• facilitating aggregation and analysis of the prostate cancer imaging datasets, allowing cross-border multi-centric cooperation on AI studies, including research and development of replicable AI algorithms for prostate cancer screening and for strengthening the evidence base for AI uptake in prostate cancer screening programmes
• collection and assessment of benefits/harms data and other data on outcomes, quality assurance and cost-effectiveness relating to prostate cancer screening programmes from the national level based on the established methods, infrastructure and networks within the previous EU4Health Programme funded projects.
• linking relevant experts and representatives from European medical societies and patient organisations to ensure broad outreach to corresponding national partner societies and patient organisations.
• effective dissemination as well as bidirectional knowledge exchange with all Member States and relevant candidate countries relating to prostate cancer screening.
• close collaboration with related projects, such as those covering lung and gastric cancer screening, and the Joint Action Implementation of cancer screening programmes (‘EUCanScreen’) from the 2023 EU4Health work programme action CR-g-23-38.
• close collaboration with the Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and the planned Commission Initiative on Prostate Cancer.
• exploration of the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in prostate cancer screening to detect prostate cancer at an earlier stage and reduce disparities in access to diagnosis among high-risk populations in synergy with the activities under the European Cancer Imaging Initiative.