Policy brief Belgian EBCP mirror group ‘prevention’ and ‘early detection & screening’ in cancer

The availability and linkage of comprehensive data on cancer mortality, incidence, screening and vaccination (HPV/HB) are essential for monitoring the process and impact of all screening and vaccination programmes, and to generate evidence to improve prevention policies. Linkage of data registries will allow better exploitation of real-world data. Simplification of data sharing for epidemiological research is of utmost importance. Human, as well as technical/technological and legal/regulatory barriers need to be tackled in Belgium to aid actors involved in screening, to facilitate organised linkage of data. Rapid advances in technologies for early detection and screening for a broad range of cancer types provide significant opportunities. Such tests are not yet ready for adoption in screening programmes. Emerging evidence should be monitored to ensure that promising innovations can transition to implementation studies in a timely manner. More and sustained research is needed to generate the necessary scientific relevance for new screening techniques in relevant cancer types.