Cancer Series: Current State of Cancer Care, Advancements in Genomics, Tech and Drug Discovery
There were an estimated 18.1 million cancer cases around the world in 2020, according to the World Cancer Research Fund International. According to the Comparator Report on Cancer in Europe 2020, the absolute number of people diagnosed with cancer rose by around 50% in Europe over the past 20 years. However, the number of deaths only increased by 20%. The numbers show we’re making great strides in survival and treatments, and early screenings. But because of the aging population, cancer care and prevention are rising global public health concerns.
This series of discussions gives an overview of the current state of cancer care, advancements made due to genomics progress, how innovators are leveraging genomics and AI to advance drug research, and what happens when patients survive cancer.
Read the deeper summary in our newsletter:
Cancer Series Ep. 1: Access to Care, Financial Toxicity and Healthcare IT in Oncology
Speaker in this episode is David J. Stewart, MD, FRCPC, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Ottawa and The Ottawa Hospital. David recently wrote a book titled: A sort primer on Why Cancer Still Sucks. Find the book: https://www.amazon.com/Short-Primer-Cancer-Still-Sucks/dp/0228871999
David talked about the comparison of financial toxicity of cancer for patients in Canada and the US, and the challenges with drug development and access in the two countries; David also talked about his experience with healthcare digitalization and IT systems.
Cancer Series Ep.2: Cancer, Genomics and Data Science
This, second episode, dives into genomics, the role of AI, and data science in oncology.
Speaker: Xose M. Fernandez, genomicist and up until recently the Chief Data Officer at Institut Curie in France, one of the leading medical, biological, and biophysical research centers in the world.
Cancer Series Ep.3: AI for New Cancer Therapies and Personalized Medicine
Cancer treatments are evolving very rapidly, but precision and targeted therapies are still only effective in roughly 10% of cancer patients. Pangea Biomed tries to understand broader gene activation patterns inside tumor cells and recommends a therapy that would help exploit cancer cells’ defense mechanisms. In this episode, Tuvik Beker, the CEO of Pangea Biomed, an Israeli-based company, talks about oncology drug development and treatment recommendation by not only looking at the single mutations in tumor cells, which the Pharmaceutical industry has already found targeted therapies for but looks for additional targets that could help with treatment decisions.
Cancer Series Ep. 4: Cancer is Gone, What Happens Next?
This episode focuses on the consequences cancer diagnosis has after patients are cured. Many cancer survivors in long-term remission face restricted access to financial services because of their medical history. Some EU countries have already implemented the right to be forgotten - a right for patients not to disclose their medical history. Changes across Europe are happening slowly and given the rising incidence of cancer on the one hand, and scientific advances on the other, we need improvement in the quality of life of patients after they are cured.
In this episode, you will hear from dr. Francoise Meunier, a member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, former Director General of European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, and a Scientific Member of the European Cancer Patient Coalition.
Read the partial transcript here.
Cancer Series Ep. 5: Digital Strategy of The Largest Single-Site Cancer Center in Europe
Medical progress is driven by research, and good research requires good data. The largest single-site cancer center in Europe and the biggest chemotherapy center in the UK - The Christie NHS Foundation Trust runs 650 clinical trials at any given time. They recently went live with a new electronic Patient Reported Outcome Measures (ePROMs) service helping to connect patients with the hospital trust through their cancer journey. As explained by Phil Bottomley, EHR Strategic Lead at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, the digitization of ePROMs is only the beginning of the digitalization process of over 600 clinical forms used in the hospital. The hospital’s digital transformation strategy is based on a data-first approach, ensuring that the used data models enable the creation of a longitudinal record. They chose openEHR specification - a product and vendor-independent specification, striving to make data independent of any software provider.