Maria Dolors Navarro, director of the Global Institute of Public Health and Health Policy of the UIC, on 5-6th February took part in «The Meeting of Experts in Rare Tumours. Treatment of patients with rare tumours: challenges and opportunities for the SNS (National Health System)», organized by Novartis.
The conference was attended, amongst others, by Dr. Jeanne-Marie Bréchot, responsible for the Institut Nacional du Cancer (France), and Dr. Paolo Giovanni Casali, of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori (Italy). Over the course of the event, the experts shared with those in attendance their organizational experience, their obtained results and some of the keys to success and identified limitations in the development of their programmes dedicated to the treatment of rare tumours (RT).
The Meeting of Experts in Rare Tumours is a pioneering initiative in Spain that brought together around 20 experts (clinicians, coordinators of cooperative groups, professionals associated with cancer plans, clinicians from reference centres and representative patient organizations) to analyze, debate and propose initiatives that tackle the important challenges that these tumours represent for the SNS.
Its objectives included developing an understanding of organizational models, the scope and results of advanced programmes in diagnosis and treatment of patients with rare tumours in France, Italy and others countries in the EU; identifying and prioritizing the main barriers, enabling factors and initiatives that could contribute to the improvement of treatment and research in RT in the SNS. and creating a document with the ideas and conclusions raised over the course of the Meeting.
