RISCC at EUROGIN 2024

EUROGIN 2024- Innovations in HPV Research and Global Cancer Solutions: an International Collaborative Conference held at the Waterfront Congress Centre, in Stockholm, March 13-16, 2024, and RISCC had a dedicated session (SS 27: RISCC: Implementation of risk-based

cervical cancer screening in Europe_ Chair: Berkhof H. (Netherlands) • Elfström M. (Sweden)).

Program:

• Introduction (Berkhof H. (Netherlands) & Elfström M. (Sweden)
• Risk of precancer by current and previous screening test results (Berkhof H. (Netherlands))
• Risk of precancer in vaccinated cohorts (Lehtinen M. (Finland))
• Risk of precancer by genotyping results (Arbyn M. (Belgium))
• Model-based evaluation of risk-based screening (Baussano …

As part of the RISCC project, Pimenoff et al. have just published a paper on the longitudinal HPV type distribution detected from cervical swabs up to eight years after the initiation of a community-randomized HPV vaccine trial in Finland (N=22,000). Using the non-vaccinated communities as reference, we observe that in those communities where girls alone or both girls and boys were vaccinated, HPV vaccine types had largely decreased but the oncogenic HPV types not included in the vaccine showed significantly increased ecological diversity and prevalence eight years post-vaccination in the gender-neutral vaccination communities compared to the girls only vaccination communities. …

Watch the video to understand what our partner Institut Catala d'Oncologia (ICO) is doing in RISCC. The main objectives of ICO in RISCC are:

• to ensure the impact of the project results by enabling their use by European health care providers and policy makers through communication materials, training and a road show; and • to promote and raise awareness on the project activities, excellence and potential benefits to European health care providers, policy makers and citizens

• to create, maintain, and use existing links with regional and international relevant societies and public health agencies in order to engage these …

The Eighth RISCC consortium meeting was a face-to-face meeting in Amsterdam. It was a very constructive meeting with enthusiastic partners updating on the great amount of work done since the last online meeting June 2023. As we have more and more tangible outcomes, the time has come also to work more on dissemination of the results of RISCC. The last face-to-face meeting in Barcelona next year will be dedicated to that as well.

ESGO/ENGAGe is a proud partner of the RISCC project. The strength of ENGAGe pays in its partnership with 70+ countries Europe Wide which enables ENGAGe to reach almost all European women. For the RISCC project certain countries have been determined to communicate on the importance of risk-based screening and the benefits it can bring to the women, the clinicians and financial budgets on national health systems. We decided to call these ENGAGE representatives RISCC ambassadors. Together with constant effort in communication on HPV vaccination, HPV DNA screening and potential of self-sampling the ENGAGe ambassadors now communicate on the need for …

The RISCC project coordinator, Hans Bekhoff, was interviewed on early July by EU Research, which is now available to view online:

" Personalised Screening Strategies: RISCC project Redefines Cervical Cancer Prevention ". You can read the article describing the project methodology and its background here

The complete reference: Berkhof, J. Robles, C. (2023) ‘Personalised Screening Strategies: RISCC project Redefines Cervical Cancer Prevention’, EU Research, Autumn 2023 vol. (35), pp. 18 -19.

The seventh RISCC consortium meeting was held online again and partners updated on the work done since the last face-to-face meeting November 2022. As we have more and more tangible outcomes, the time has come also to work more on dissemination of the results of RISCC.

A screenshot from the meeting can be seen below..;-)

Our Swedish partners recorded a YouTube video about the RISCC trial in Sweden. Click here to watch it!

February 8-11 2023 there was a live Eurogin 2023 conference again in Bilbao, Spain, on "Shared Challenges of HPV driven cancers- from research to practice. Many RISCC participants attended the conference and presented their work. Find some impressions below.

The sixth RISCC consortium meeting took place over the last two days and it was finally in person! It was absolutely great to see everyone’s faces and enjoy dinner after two days of work.

The fifth RISCC consortium meeting was held online. It was a very fruitful meeting. We have done many advances towards the development and implementation of risk-based cervical cancer screening but there is still much work to be done.

Next project meeting: 16-17 November 2022 in Amsterdam. We will be meeting finally in person!

The RISCC consortium is being featured in HPV world. Three RISCC members are giving an overview of "Risk based screening for cervical cancer in Europe" and the objectives of the consortium in the latest version of the HPV World newsletter. HPV World is the global newsletter on HPV related topics and has allmost 80,000 subscribers.

On 10-12nd April 2022, the International Multidisciplinary HPV Congress EUROGIN (EUropean Research Organisation on Genital Infection and Neoplasia) has taken place in Düsseldorf, Germany.

As experts in cervical cancer prevention, several of the RISCC partners have attended and presented the work done within the project. In total, 25 presentations in 15 sessions or workshops, including a specific one on risk-based screening in Europe by Hans Berkhof, the RISCC project coordinator.

Over the last two days, the fourth RISCC consortium meeting was held online. It was a very fruitful meeting. We have made many advances towards the development and implementation of risk-based cervical cancer screening but there is still much work to be done.

Next project meeting: 10-11 May 2022

A new publication of the RISCC consortium is published online ahead of print in The Lancet Regional Health - Europe. This study confirmed that HPV testing on self-collected samples is an accurate alternative to HPV testing on clinician-collected samples in primary HPV-based screening programmes. First author is Federica Inturrisi. The full manuscript can be found here (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100235). A visual summary of the study can be found below.

From May 30th till June 1st the International Multidisciplinary HPV conference EUROGIN was held. Due to continuing restrictions, this conference was held completely virtual. Many members of the RISCC consortium were present during the conference. There was a dedicated session about Risk-based cervical cancer screening and in addition the project coordinator Prof. Dr. Johannes Berkhof gave a plenary presentation about RISCC.

On Wednesday May 19th the RISCC consortium met for their third meeting. It was a short update meeting, which was held completely online. It was a great opportunity for all partners to be informed on the progress of the different projects. Although some work has been delayed, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this also provides great opportunities to rethink cervical cancer screening in Europe.

A new publication of the RISCC consortium is published online ahead of print in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. The study aims to demonstrate the potential of 5-year HPV type concordance as a disease marker for HPV-positive and cytology-negative women. First author is Federica Inturrisi. The full manuscript can be found here. A visual summary of the study can be found below.

On Wednesday December 9th 2020, the RISCC Consortium had their second biannual meeting. Due to current restrictions in many European countries the meeting was held completely online. During a very productive and inspiring meeting the members of the Consortium received an update on the current progress.

The RISCC project coordinator Prof. Berkhof was interviewed by ZonMW. The article is in Dutch and can be found here: "It can be cheaper and more effective"

A new publication of the RISCC consortium was published this summer in the International Journal of Cancer. This research study conducted by Federica Inturrisi and colleagues aims to estimate the lifetime risk of (screen-detected) CIN2+ and CIN3+, using the using the Population‐based Screening Study Amsterdam (POBASCAM). The full manuscript can be found here. A visual summary of the study can be found below.