ICA receives a letter from EORTC

The EORTC Headquarters are based in Brussels, Belgium, from where its various activities are coordinated. However, the EORTC is both multinational and multidisciplinary, and the present EORTC Network comprises over 300 hospitals or cancer centres in over 30 countries, which include:

• Some 2,900 collaborators from all disciplines involved in cancer treatment and research.
• Some 5,000 new patients who are enrolled each year.
• Some 50 trials that are permanently open to patient entry.
• Some 50,000 patients who are in follow-up.
• A database of more than 150,000 patients.

The aims of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) are to develop, conduct, coordinate, and stimulate translational and clinical research in Europe in order to improve the management of cancer and related problems by increasing survival but also patient quality of life. Extensive and comprehensive research in this wide field is often beyond the means of individual European hospitals and can be best accomplished through the multidisciplinary multinational efforts of basic scientists and clinicians.

The ultimate goal of the EORTC is to improve the standard of cancer treatment through the testing of more effective therapeutic strategies based on drugs, surgery and/or radiotherapy that are already in use and also through the development of new drugs and other innovative approaches.

This is accomplished mainly by conducting large, multicentre, prospective, randomised, phase III clinical trials. In this way, the EORTC facilitates the passage of experimental discoveries into state-of-the-art treatments.