SOLACE

Strengthening the Screening of Lung Cancer in Europe

Implementation project in two-fold:

• Developing a gold standard for lung screening programs across the European Union
• Develop and test measures in order to involve certain groups of people that are most left out: women, people with chronic diseases, ethnic minorities and remote locations

Duration: April 1st 2023 until April 2026

Lung cancer is the second most diagnosed cancer among males and the third among females in EU Member States and the leading cause of cancer death in both genders. Several randomized trials from the US and Europe have demonstrated the capability of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) to detect lung cancer early and significantly reduce mortality. Since the US rolled out LDCT screening in 2013, several adjustments were needed to overcome nationwide implementation difficulties, especially regarding recruitment. Due to the heterogeneous landscape of lung cancer care in Europe, it is not realistic to believe that screening criteria and conditions from the highly scientific lung cancer screening trials are 1:1 transferrable to the real-world conditions in 27 different countries of the European Union. Backed by the expertise and network of all relevant European societies and stakeholders, SOLACE will assess the current state of play, needs and best practices of Lung Cancer Screening (LCS) in EU member states and produce a comprehensive guideline and implementation package covering all steps of the lung cancer screening pathway: evidence-based guidelines, technical papers, SOPs, documents regarding quality assurance, methodology, benefit-harm balance, cost-effectiveness. This package will be used to showcase de novo implementation. 

SOLACE project is a 36-month project led by a consortium of 30 institutions from 15 European Union Member States (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain). 

SOLACE will design, plan and roll out three pilot projects in 15 member states with more than 12000 participants to address key issues to increase participation: gender aspects, inequalities regarding hard-to-reach populations (social, ethnic, geographical) and higher-risk individuals. Quality assurance and cost-effectiveness analysis, using dedicated models tailored to different healthcare systems, are essential aspects of addressing harms, such as radiation exposure, overdiagnosis, and complications in healthcare practices

SOLACE will establish the European Lung Cancer Screening Alliance (ELCSA), serving as a long-lasting interdisciplinary platform as a backbone for sustained implementation in all member states. 

Our role:

• Involvement in the scientific and ethics coordination task and national assessment survey 
• Point of contact for data protection questions. 
• Contribution to an overall ethically and legally compliant realization of the project 

Responsibilities in the project: 

• Scientific and ethics coordination ethical-legal requirements.
• Help to address challenges in data protection law to Lung Cancer Screening Programs (LCSPs) where necessary.  
• Provide input in coordination with WP-leads on topics of data protection and research ethics

 More information on the project is available is here and via u:cris.

Experts of the Department working on this project:

• Forgó, Nikolaus (Project Lead)
• Wimmer, Martina (Admin)
• Almeida, Catarina (Scientific Project Staff)
• Wilinska, Malgorzata (Scientific Project Staff)
• Hübelbauer, Peter (Scientific Project Staff)

The SOLACE project is co-funded under the EU4Health Programme 2021–2027 under grant agreement no. 101101187. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or HaDEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.