Today, 12th November 2014, Members of the European Parliament Dr Philippe Juvin (EPP, France), Philippe De Backer (ALDE, Belgium), Françoise Grossetête (EPP, France) and Daciana Sârbu (S&D, Romania) officially launched the Call to Action “Giving a Voice to Pancreatic Cancer“, during an event on Pancreatic Cancer in the European Parliament supported and organised by ECPC.
ECPC President Francesco De Lorenzo chaired the event together with Mr De Backer, welcoming the efforts made by the global movement behind the organisation of the first World Pancreatic Cancer Day. He was joined also by estimate experts in the field of cancer treatment and research such as Professor Matthias Löhr, Professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Karolinska Institute. Antoni Montserrat, Policy Officer for cancer and rare diseases, Directorate of Public Health for the European Commission (DG SANCO) also spoke about the importance of the action in reversing the statistics for survival with the devastating disease.
Among the most important recommendations included in the “Giving a Voice to Pancreatic Cancer Call-to-Action we shall mention:
- Ensuring pancreatic cancer is included in key European initiatives aiming at fighting cancer, with a focus on increasing research to better understand the disease, improving data collection, identifying tools for earlier diagnosis, providing educational programmes, and improving standard of care with a focus on active treatment;
- Ensuring that Member States include pancreatic cancer in their national cancer plans and in their health awareness programmes.