Project Extended & Profiled

The ExPO-r-Net project has been officially extended until August 31st 2017. The last report (RP3 report) is therefore covering the period of 01.03.2016-31.08.2017.
ExPO-r-Net will therefore continue for a few more months and project partners will have the opportunity to finalize all the different preparatory work, discussing it at the next meetings in 2017.

ECCO2017 in Amsterdam

The ECCO2017 Congress, 28 – 30 Jan in Amsterdam, dedicated a policy session to cross-border cancer care with specific focus on the European Reference Networks. Prof. Ruth Ladenstein was invited to share the lessons learned from the ExPO-r-Net experience and the vision for the ERN PaedCan. It was an important opportunity to present these achievements to policy makers from the European Parliament and the European Commission and interact with representatives of the adult Rare Cancers ERN in an interactive panel discussion. Prof. Ladenstein emphasised the long-standing cooperation in the paediatric cancer sector in Europe involving professionals, parents, patients and survivors and building the ERN PaedCan in a truly “bottom–up” process. Most importantly, the vision and the model of the ERN PaedCan was presented as that of Optimising cross-border cancer care by emphasising virtual tumour boards and supporting selected procedures abroad for those who need them.

SIOP 2016 – Joint Presentation with the European Committee of CCI

ExPO-r-Net was presented in the CCI session at the SIOP International Congress in Dublin,19-22 October 2016, by the SIOPE Secretariat and CCI Europe members in what is truly representative of the cooperation between professionals and parents in the project. It was an important opportunity to raise awareness for the ERN PaedCan among parents and patients who will use the services. This is also an important building block for the project visibility.

Other Promotional Initiatives

In the past months, ExPO-r-Net was also described and profiled at different occasions: at the MAC–CRUK–SIOPE Conference ‘Review of the EU Paediatric Medicines Regulation – Let’s do more for children with cancer’ (September 7th, 2016, European Parliament , Brussels, BE); at the RD-ACTION Workshop ‘Exchanging data for virtual care within the ERN Framework’ (28-29 September 2016, Brussels, BE); at the 9th International conference and 1st Global AYA Cancer Congress (December 5-7, 2016, Edinburgh, UK); and at the SIOPE Society Day  & European Cancer Congress (27 – 30 January 2017, Amsterdam, NL). Last September the project was presented at the Opening Plenary of the Gastein Health Forum 2016 as one of the finalists of the European Health Award 2016: ExPO-r-NeT scored very well in the evaluation, and it was featured on the European Health Forum Gastein website and press release. The official launch of all approved ERNs will take place on 9-10 March 2017 in Vilnius, Lithuania.