Prostate Cancer (PCa) is the second leading cause of cancer, among men in Europe. There are currently major unmet needs in this field, such as insufficient knowledge on risk factors that contribute to PCa and on patient characteristics (including genetic profiles) that could facilitate patient stratification. Finally, there is lack of meaningful engagement of all key stakeholders, while the knowledge currently gained from clinical practice and real life data is not being fed back into PCa patients’ care pathways. There is thus a need for better definition of PCa across all stages, improved patient’s stratification at diagnosis, and standardisation of PCa-related outcomes based on real life data. PIONEER’s unique dual approach is to first identify critical evidence gaps in PCa by respected Key Opinion Leaders, and then embark on a research priority setting exercise that reflects the needs of all key stakeholders in PCa management. To achieve this, PIONEER has brought together comprehensive datasets that consists of the most relevant prostate clinical trials and registries, large epidemiological cohorts, electronic heath records, and real-life data from different European (and non-European) patient populations. These unique data sets will be integrated, standardised, harmonised and analysed using approaches that are built on our experience of similar previous IMI projects i.e EMIF, and eTRIKS, and analysed using a unique set of methodologies and advanced analytics methods (OMOP, eHS). PIONEER has already performed a first PCa research priority setting survey, where major stakeholders were asked to identify the current unmet needs in PCa. The five most important open questions will be used as pilot studies to verify PIONEER’s research framework. As such, PIONEER’s deliverables will be outcome-driven, value-based and patient-centric, and relevant to all key stakeholders, as they would have been meaningfully involved from the inception of the project.

Chronic cancer treatment places new demands on patients and families to manage their own care. The iManageCancer project will support this challenge and provide a cancer disease self-management platform designed according to the specific needs of patient groups and focusing on the wellbeing of the cancer patient with special emphasis on psycho-emotional evaluation and self-motivated goals. The platform will be centred in a Personal Health Record that will exploit recent advances on Health Avatars for the individual cancer patient surrounded by mHealth applications designed to encourage the patient, enhance clinician-patient communication, maximise compliance to therapy, inform about drug interactions, and contribute to the management of pain and other side-effects of cancer treatment. The Health Avatar PHR will regularly monitor the psycho-emotional status of the patient and will periodically record the everyday life experiences of the cancer patient with respect to the therapy side effects, while different groups of patients and their families will share information through diaries and clinicians are provided with clinical information. The PHR will help assess adherence to therapy, physiological and psychological status while the platform will recommend targeted informative applications and serious games according to the disease type and psycho-emotional status of the patients in order to promote a positive and healthier psycho-emotional state. The disease management platform will be further complemented by an integrated expert system with formal self-management models that will be oriented to decision support, the management of side-effects, adherence to therapy and guidance for patients including drug dose self-adjustments. The iManageCancer platform will be designed on clinical evidence and in close collaboration of clinical experts, IT specialists and patients and will be assessed in clinical pilots with adult and paediatric cancer patients.