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EORTC: Aims and Mission

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 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.

The EORTC Headquarters is based in Brussels, Belgium, from where its various activities are coordinated and run. 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.

Through translational and clinical research, the EORTC offers an integrated approach to drug development, drug evaluation programmes and medical practices.

History

The organisation was founded as an international organisation under Belgian law in 1962 by eminent oncologists working in the main cancer research institutes of the EU countries and Switzerland. It was named the Groupe Européen de Chimiothérapie Anticancéreuse (GECA) and became the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) in 1968.

EORTC Presidents

Last updated on 27-08-2009