BASIC DATA OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT

• ARRS code: V3-2326
• TITLE: Preparation of epidemiological bases fort he introduction of new national cancer screening programs in Slovenia
• PRICE CLASS: B
• PROJECT LEADER: Tina Žagar, PhD
• APPLICANT RESEARCH ORGANISATION: Institute of Oncology Ljubljana

• DURATION: 1.10.2023 – 30.9.2025

• FINANCING: Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency

SHORT SUMMARY

Around 16,000 new cancer patients are diagnosed in Slovenia every year, and every year more than 6,000 people die of cancer. Cancer screening is a public health intervention where healthy people are invited for screening with the aim of preventing or detecting cancer as early as possible in a handful of patients. Slovenia is one of the leading countries in Europe regarding screening, offering its citizens all three evidence-based organised cancer screening programmes.

At the end of 2020, the Council of the European Union proposed a new approach to cancer screening; previous recommendations on cancer screening were limited to breast, cervical and colorectal cancers, but now Member States have agreed to broaden the focus to lung, prostate and stomach cancers. In 2020, on the initiative of the National Cancer Control Programme Slovenia established a National Screening Commission to oversee the development and implementation of new screening programmes. One of the key steps in the planning process is to define the epidemiological basis using the available high-quality data on the burden of cancer in the population which are collected by the Slovenian Cancer Registry. In addition, the factors contributing to cancer incidence that can be influenced by primary and secondary prevention measures need to be identified. Assessing the potential impact of the introduction of screening on the burden of disease is also key to the planning process.

The main objective of the project is to assess the population burden and epidemiological characteristics of lung, prostate and gastric cancers in Slovenia as a starting point for the potential introduction of new national screening programmes for these cancers. The specific objectives of the project are:

• To estimate the population burden of lung, prostate and stomach cancers based on data from the Slovenian Cancer Registry and to project the burden for the next ten years.

• To identify population groups at increased risk of these cancers.

• To provide an overview of possible public health measures to reduce the burden of these cancers.

• To assess the potential contribution of the introduction of organised national screening for lung, prostate and stomach cancers to reducing the burden of these cancers in the population.

In this study, we will assess the burden and epidemiological characteristics of lung, prostate and gastric cancers in Slovenia as a baseline for the possible introduction of new national cancer screening programmes. We will define appropriate methodological approaches for providing an epidemiological basis needed for the introduction of new national cancer screening programmes in Slovenia. Particular emphasis will be placed on methods that allow the identification of population groups at increased risk of a particular cancer and on explaining the potential impact of the introduction of public health measures to reduce the burden of a particular cancer. We will use data from the Slovenian Cancer Registry, which is the oldest public health registry in Slovenia and the primary source of data for estimating the burden of cancer. In the geographical and time-trend analyses, we will also include data from various other national health and administrative databases, available to the researchers involved in the proposed project.