Collaboration

As one of the key features of Ireland’s involvement in the EUCanScreen project, the Department of Health (DoH) is leading on an innovative piece of work in collaboration with the Irish National Screening Service (NSS) and experts from the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), the University of Cyprus (UCY) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

EUCanScreen Work Package 7

An interval cancer can be understood as one that develops between two rounds of screening. Interval cancers are an important quality indicator in population screening programmes. The aim of the Task is to agree definitions, benchmarks and calculation methodologies for interval cancers, as they apply to cervical, breast and colorectal (bowel) cancer screening programmes. An additional objective is to propose standardised measurements that could be applied in other European countries.

Research Methodology

Our research methodology adopts a multi-stage approach:

The initial stage involved the establishment of subgroups for the three more common cancer screening programmes, involving partners from multiple EUCanScreen countries. ICO (Spain) leads colorectal cancer, UCY (Cyprus) leads breast cancer, and the NSS (Ireland), in collaboration with IARC, leads cervical cancer.

A systematic review of existing published literature on interval cancers is underway, having been commenced by each of the subgroup leaders over the summer. This will conclude in December 2025.

Delphi Process

The next stage will be the initiation of a modified Delphi process. Expert panels have been selected to complete a survey and consensus meetings for each of the three cancer types are planned to take place in mid-February 2026.

The findings of the systematic review and modified Delphi process will be summarised in a milestone report, which is due to be finalised in May 2026.

Second Phase

Planning for the second phase of the Task will commence in the second half of 2026. This will consider the feasibility and applicability of the proposed measurements and attempt to apply them in different screening contexts, including centralised and regionally-structured population screening systems.