New Publication on Understanding the Patient Journey in Breast Cancer Care

A new publication that shines a light on an often overlooked part of cancer care: the patient journey has been published.

Titled “Understanding the patient journey: Barriers, facilitators, and expectations in joining a chemotherapy de-escalation trial among premenopausal patients with breast cancer”, it goes beyond clinical results to explore what really influences patients’ decisions to join a clinical trial. You can read it in full here.

As highlighted by Tanja Spanic, Executive Director Of Europa Donna Slovenia and partner in the Path-for-Young project, deciding to join a clinical trial is not just a medical choice for many young women with breast cancer. For many it is deeply personal. Fear of recurrence, trust in healthcare professionals, quality of life, and individual life circumstances all influence this decision. To ensure clinical trials truly serve patients, it is essential to better understand and reflect these real-life experiences.

Bringing the Patient Voice to the Centre 

This research is part of the EU-funded Path-for-Young project, which is based on a clinical trial recruiting premenopausal patients with HR+/HER2- breast cancer. This international clinical trial called Optima-young clinical trial is investigating whether the study aims to determine whether clinicians can identify those at higher risk who may not need additional chemotherapy without compromising their clinical outcomes. By reducing unnecessary treatment, the trial also seeks to improve patients’ long-term quality of life.

The project brings together 25 partners, including EUPATI who are all working on tailoring breast cancer treatment for young women and providing innovative solutions to better support patients. EUPATI is helping to ensure patients’ views and experiences are included throughout the project, especially in how research is designed and carried out. 

As patient educators, we work to make sure research reflects real patient needs. Evidence like this helps reduce barriers to joining clinical trials, builds trust, and makes sure new treatments are meaningful for patients. 

A huge thank you to all co-authors and partners involved. It is a privilege to be part of work that puts patient perspectives at the centre of research. The progress made in the Path-for-Young project shows what strong collaboration can achieve. 

More information about the Path-for-Young Project and EUPATI’s role 

The Personalized Adjuvant Treatment for HR+/HER2- breast cancer FOR YOUNG patients (PATH-FOR-YOUNG) project aims to establish and implement a new standard of care (SoC) for young women with hormone receptor (HR) positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER)2 negative breast cancer (BC). This new SoC will identify personalized routes for safely de-escalating chemotherapy (CT) and for providing continued support throughout the cancer-care journey to maximize long-term quality of life (QOL). 

The project will leverage the existing OPTIMA-UK randomized controlled trial (RCT) and expand it by running an unparalleled global, pragmatic RCT focused on de-escalating CT among premenopausal patients with high-risk HR+HER2- BC: the OPTIMA-YOUNG RCT. 

What is EUPATI’s Role? 

EUPATI is proud to collaborate with a consortium of 25 partners and play a pivotal role in the Work Package focused on: 

🔹 Optimizing patient co-creation and representation.

🔹 Capturing treatment burden.

🔹 Empowering patients towards self-management.

EUPATI’s contributions include: 

✔️ Supporting patient recruitment for the Patient and Provider Co-Creation Stakeholder Board, ensuring the patient voice is central to the project. 

✔️ Delivering expert training in co-design and patient engagement for the consortium. 

✔️ Developing a digital course for both patients and healthcare providers on clinical trial operations and the novel care pathway being tested in the trial. 

More information on the project can be found here.

Disclaimer:
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Health and Digital Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority to be held responsible for them.