Cross-border cooperation to foster the resilience of clinical management in cancer patients by establishing best practices in personalized molecular-based diagnostics, treatment, and long-term care

CROSSCARE addresses the following common challenges in the cross-border region, as defined by the Joint Programme Strategy for Interreg IPA Romania-Serbia: approaching the issue of disparities in accessibility to health care services and low distribution of medical infrastructure and equipment; strengthening the effectiveness of health systems in order to reduce mortality; improvement in the quality of care for life-threatening conditions and cancer management, strengthening the effectiveness of health systems in order to reduce premature mortality. Specifically, the project addresses the issue of cancer, which is a major health threat in both countries in terms of incidence, prevalence and mortality. By purchasing new equipment and extending the capabilities of Expert System Software previously developed in the RORS-193 project, the partners will be able to implement medical project activities, i.e. harvesting the tumor and cell samples from cancer patients and subsequent genetic and immunophenotypic testing, in order to provide patients and their oncologists the precise diagnostic of tumors, that will make possible personalized treatments to be tailored, thus improving the chances of survival, life expectancy, and quality of life for cancer patients in both countries. The specific objective is to create guidelines and implement precision diagnostic procedures and personalized therapy for oncologic patients in the cross-border region. The precise diagnostic for 300 patients will be ensured by using advanced equipment and methodologies (NGS, flowcytometry, qRT-PCR, cytotoxicity assays) and surgical treatment in state-of-the-art operating facility. All data will be processed and interpreted by the algorithm-based Expert System Software which will provide therapeutic indications in solid tumors. During the project lifetime, the patients included in the study will benefit of the investments made in both partner institutions, while the results and conclusions of the medical activities will be incorporated into the study that will be submitted to the Romanian and Serbian Ministries of Health. Furthermore, new joint working procedures for sample harvesting, transport, and analysis of human biological samples will be created and will be available to the interested healthcare institutions from both countries. Publishing of two scientific articles and a PhD thesis and submitting an innovation patent are complementary activities derived from the medical work meant to add value to the project. At these add the know-how exchanges and medical seminars, while all work will be further supported by the Information and Publicity activities in order to maximize the impact of the project. The expected change at the end of the project is a better diagnostic and treatment of cancer through the use of the innovative precision diagnostic tool developed in CROSSCARE. The outputs to be delivered through the project work will be: 1. modernized equipment relevant for precise diagnostic and personalized treatment of oncologic patients and 2. extended capabilities of Expert System Software. By the end of the project, 300 patients from both Romania and Serbia will be direct beneficiaries of the precision diagnostic and surgical treatment with all data being processed and interpreted by the algorithm-based Expert System Software which will provide therapeutic indications in solid tumors. The project outputs delivered by this project will be used in partner countries, but can be extended to a wider region of Europe. Moreover, we aim in identifying a common target for all solid tumor, which can be further used in advancement of therapeutic strategies, including immunotherapies. Most of the activities will be implemented jointly at the same time or in sequence (surgery and harvesting of human biological samples, transport and genetic and immunophenotypic analysis, data processing and interpretation by the customized software, delivery of reports to patients). Since the most frequent types of cancer are the same in Romania and Serbia, this means a series of factors led to the predominance of these types in both countries, and CROSSCARE intends to identify a common tumor target and a set of mutated genes causing these tumors. The joint effort to solve a common health problem affecting tens of thousands of people every year in each of the two countries is the logical approach that will reduce the material and human resources needed to achieve the objectives of the current project proposal and will offer a joint solution to reducing cancer mortality and burden in both countries. The novelty of CROSSCARE solution will bring insights on the common genetic causes of cancer in the cross-border region, with a high potential of changing the current medical practice, at least for selected patients, ultimately leading to the implementation of precision diagnostics and treatment policies by the responsible authorities in both countries.

Create guidelines and implement precision diagnostic procedures and personalized therapy for oncologic patients in the cross border region. By the end of the project, 300 patients from both Romania and Serbia will be direct beneficiaries of the precision diagnostic using advanced equipment and methodologies (NGS, flowcytometry, qRT-PCR, cytotoxicity assays) as well as surgical treatment in state-of-the-art operating facility. All data will be processed and interpreted by the algorithm-based Expert System Software which will provide therapeutic indications in solid tumors. The project outputs delivered by this project will be used in partner countries, but can be extended to a wider region of Europe. Moreover, we aim in identifying a common target for all solid tumor, which can be further used in advancement of therapeutic strategies, including immunotherapies.