Liver Cancer Awareness Month 2022

Liver Cancer: No Patient Left Behind, Optimising the European Response
 

ELPA and Digestive Cancers Europe (DiCE) hosted an online European policy event on October 12, 2022. Check more details here.
Bringing together experts, policymakers, patients, and other stakeholders active in the field of liver cancer to explore what we can all do to ensure that no patient in Europe is left behind.
Speakers:

• Lieve Wierinck, Digestive Cancers Europe (DiCE)
• Dr. Bruno Sangro, International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA)
• Prof. Jeroen Dekervel, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
• Zorana Maravic, Digestive Cancers Europe (DiCE)
• Prof. Peter Jepsen, European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL)
• Prof. Sven Francque, European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL)
• Prof. Jörn Schattenberg, European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL)
• Marko Korenjak, European Liver Patient Association (ELPA)
• Tomislav Sokol, Member of the European Parliament, Croatia, EPP

Meeting with Members of the European Parliament



Annual Campaign
#LiverCancerAwarenessMonth
check our social media channel and
https://livercancermonth.eu/


 

EUPATI Fellow graduation

ELPA Patient Summit NAFLD, improving patients' knowledge

On October 6, 2022, ELPA organised the Patient Summit NAFLD, improving patients’ knowledge. 
 

The recording is available here. The event brought together many experts and patients’ representatives.

• Mr Mike Betel, Fatty Liver Alliance, Canada
• Prof Manuel Romero Gómez, Director of the Gastroenterology Service, Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío, Sevilla, Spain
• Prof Gamal Shiha, Internal Medicine Dept., Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Egypt. Founder and Chairman, Egyptian Liver Research Institute and Hospital (ELRIAH), Mansoura, Egypt
• Prof Shira Zelber-Sagi, Associate Professor Head of School of Public Health, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa The Tel-Aviv Medical Center, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Israel
• Ms Veronika Všetičkova, Physiotherapist, Head of ELPA EU Affairs, Belgium
• Dr Michail Papoulas, General Hospital of Nicosia, Transplant Clinic, Republic of Cyprus
• Ms Yiannoula Koulla, President of Cyprus Liver Patients’ Association, Leader of ELPA NAFLD / NASH group, Republic of Cyprus
• Ms Selly Sickout, SOS Hepatites, France 

Participation in meetings at the European Parliament

Securing Equitable Patient Access to Advanced Therapies across Europe
 

On October 24, 2022, together with European institutions, academia, healthcare professionals, citizen organizations & Patient Advocacy Groups (PAGs), the private sector and key stakeholders, Active Citizenship Network discussed the disruptive aspects of ATMPs. All the participants focused on the opportunities and challenges of new advanced therapies, which are expected to increase significantly over the next decade: an encouraging but equally challenging scenario, considering the high costs and public budget constraints faced by several EU countries. How can European institutions facilitate this process? What decisions are taken at the level of each Member State to make these therapies accessible to the largest number of eligible patients? What role do PAGs play? On this occasion, the Call to Action “Advanced Therapies Medicinal Products revolution & the respect of the patients’ right to access to care”, so far endorsed by 37 PAGs, was officially presented at the European level. 
 
The final push to eliminate viral hepatitis – how can the EU lead the successful achievement
In June 2022, WHO approved the Global Health Strategy Against Viral Hepatitis (2022-2030) which reaffirms the 2030 elimination target. However, progress in some member states is lagging and mortality from hepatitis-related liver cancer is on the rise. The situation is even worse in some other world regions. On October 25, 2022, kicked off by interventions by ACHIEVE and EASL, the conference explored:

• What can the EU do to lead and achieve this global public health goal?
• How can Europe's Beating Cancer Plan support this aim?
• Which are the funding needs from EU4Health for the years to come, and how can it be ensured that the member states and regions in greatest need will profit from this funding?
• How can good practices be shared and picked up?

• Increase awareness and trigger actions at Member states level, such as expanding recommendations for HPV/HBV vaccines coverage and encourage Member States to update their National Cancer Control Plans with clear Vaccine Coverage Rate (VCR) goals on HPV and Hep B prevention.
• Explore ways to develop strategies to reflect the Europe Beating Cancer Plan’s objectives, targets as part of the roadmaps towards HPV and HBV elimination.
• Incentivise Member States to make use of all available EU funding instruments to implement actions, especially for vaccine-preventable cancers.

Ivana Dragojevic, ELPA Director, gave a keynote speech regarding the situation in Europe. There are estimates of more than 60,000 deaths annually due to liver cancer, of which Hepatitis B is a risk factor. This infection can be prevented by the vaccine.

UEG Week 2022

ELPA representative attended the UEG Week 2022 taking place on October 8-11, 2022. 
 

Founded in 1992 United European Gastroenterology (UEG) is the leading non-profit organisation for excellence in digestive health in Europe and beyond. As Europe’s home for multidisciplinary gastroenterology, UEG unites over 50,000 engaged professionals from national and specialist societies, individual digestive health experts and related scientists from all fields. The congress was a great opportunity for ELPA to make its work known in the medical community.

Elimination of Viral Hepatitis in the Balkan countries: lessons learned and the way forward

Organised by the Viral Hepatitis Prevention Board and opened by Dr. Bekim Sali Minister of Health, North Macedonia, the meeting had the following objectives:
 

• provide an overview of the current viral hepatitis situation in the countries: surveillance systems, epidemiology, screening, burden, prevention, treatment and the cascade of care
• discuss achievements and challenges in the prevention and control of viral hepatitis, the possible implementation of new prevention strategies, control measures and monitoring systems in the countries
• discuss the development and implementation of national hepatitis plans
• assess the need to achieve the goal of eliminating viral hepatitis as a major public health threat by 2030 as set out in the renewed WHO Global Strategy and WHO Europe Action Plan, building on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) commitments
• discuss successes, issues and barriers to overcome and the way forward.

Among all other outstanding speakers, ELPA President Marko Korenjak and ELPA Director Milan Mishkovikj presented the role of patient organisations in the Balkan region. 

DECISION, 4th General Assembly

On October 19-21, 2022, ELPA was part of the 4th General Assembly meeting of the DECISION project. 
 

The meeting was a great success with the first day devoted to paper writing: on that day 12 meetings took place to discuss and progress on 7 different papers with more than 20 people. On the second day, participants extensively discussed the specifics of the upcoming COMBAT-Trial as well as the brand new and refined animal models of ACLF. The third day was devoted to multi-omics analyses, bioinformatics and machine learning as well as an update on the newly developed tools and checklists for ethics and data protection and the health economics studies planned in DECISION. ELPA President Marko Korenjak, being our association a partner of the project, presented the impact of the communication and dissemination activities during the last year.

IPcureB Steering Committee meeting

On October 24, 2022, ELPA took part in the meetings of the IPCureB Steering Committee. 
 

The project's objective is to develop novel curative concepts for chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Within the medical research project IP-cure-B, ELPA is responsible for disseminating and communicating the research results and any other information that can be useful for patients and patient communities.  ELPA is actively engaged in translating the project results and milestones into “patient-friendly” language and incorporating the patient view during the dissemination process. ELPA is also consulted to ensure that the ethics documents, information sheet and patient consent form for the proof of concept (PoC) clinical trial are understandable by patients. The process of dissemination and communication involves all ELPA’s communication channels, and we actively participate in all events organized by the medical research project IP-cure-B. ELPA participated in creating webpage social media platforms and made sure of their updates with relevant information.