Oncopolicy

Together with The European Cancer Organisation and other cancer-related European societies, ESSO plays an important role in the development of European cancer health and research policies to promote the interest of cancer patients. The position of our Society emphasises the need to guarantee the safety and quality of cancer surgery, and to combine specialised cancer surgery with other treatment modalities to ensure the best possible patient outcomes.

Essential Requirements for Quality Cancer Care

ESSO is very active in the European Cancer organisation network of “essential requirements for quality cancer care (ERQCC)”, covering various tumor sites. 

EU cross-multidisciplinary training in oncology

Thanks to the invaluable oncopolicy efforts of Professor Niall O’ Higgins, a proposal for a cross-multidisciplinary training in oncology at the EU level was unanimously approved and recommended by the European Commission Expert Committee on Cancer Control.

It is hoped that this recommendation can be officially endorsed in the months ahead by as many stakeholders as possible, and that recommendations in this direction can be implemented by the oncology training organisations in each member state of the EU. The proposal of this international collaborative training arrangement in no way undermines the excellent global core curriculum developed by ESSO and its American counterpart, the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO), nor the other training curricula in Europe.

Still a long way to go to achieve multidisciplinarity for the benefit of patients

“Still a long way to go to achieve multidisciplinarity for the benefit of patients” the title of the ESSO response letter to the ESMO position paper "The current and future role of the medical oncologist in the professional care for cancer patients", both published on Annals of Oncology. This letter was produced at the initiative of a working group involving 20 oncology and related societies including ESSO, set up to comment from a multidisciplinary perspective on the ESMO position paper, which affirmed in some parts the predominance of medical oncology among the other disciplines involved in cancer care.

Working Group experts demonstrated that there is no predominance of a cancer specialty over another and that a more transparent definition of individual professional roles would better support patients and facilitate progress in cancer care. Read the letter here.