Innovations in diagnostics are aiming to better localization and identification of the tumor. Treatments are more and more targeted reducing the burden and side effects for the patient. With these developments care is given more tailored to the tumor characteristics and the patient and his or her social environment. To be able to deliver this personalized care and implement the innovations and new knowledge well it is necessary to be able to build a bridge between the developers and researchers and the daily clinical practice. Moreover, the patient has to be informed about all options to make a deliberate choice together with his or her care givers.

The Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization (IKNL) and the University of Twente are engaged to organize a symposium to give an impulse to the joint determination of the effect of these organizational and technological innovations on the quality of the oncological care. The target is to deliver well organized good quality care across the complete care pathway (care continuum), tailored to the need of the patient (personalized cancer care), which is cost-effective and based on a shared decision (shared decision making).

Key-players in the field of research and clinical practice will guide you through these different subjects. Professor Robert Mansel of the Cardiff University, England and former chair of the European Society of Breast cancer specialists (EUSOMA) will elaborate on the subject of Quality of oncology care. Professor Philip Poortmans, head of the radiotherapy department of the Marie Curie Institute in Paris and chairman of the European CanCer Organisation (ECCO) will elaborate on the subject innovation and organization.

The symposium will be held at the ‘Amphitheater-Vrijhof’ and the thesis defense at ‘de Waaier’ both at the University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. The symposium will be in English.

Target audience:

The symposium is of interest for:

• care givers in oncology
• (medical technical) researchers
• board members of patient coalitions
• board of directors, managers and staff of care institutions

The audience at the symposium will be closely involved and will be able to interact and give their associations on every presented subjects, resulting in word-clouds for every topic.  

Following this symposium Marissa van Maaren, junior researcher at IKNL and PhD student at the University of Twente will defend her thesis ‘Local management of early stage breast cancer and clinical risk prediction of survival’ at 14:30 hours.