Introducing REBECCA
KI is participating in a new EU project about using Real World Data (RWD) to improve post treatment in breast cancer, as well as shaping guidelines and best practices for researchers, public health and regulatory bodies throughout Europe to facilitate wider adaption of RWD in research and clinical practice.
The project is entitled REBECCA: “Research on Breast Cancer induced chronic conditions supported by Causal Analysis of multi-source data” and is an EU project where KI is participating partners with an approved budget of around 600.000€ (with another 300.000€ for Karolinska Hospital).
Data will be acquired and processed by the REBECCA monitoring platform, with targeted data sources including mobile and smartwatch nutritional and physical activity data, online behaviours, electronic health records, national registries and databases. Those will be analyzed in tandem with traditional clinical information, within 7 planned clinical studies in Sweden, Norway and Spain.
This will then be used in order to improve:
- Clinical research on chronic medical conditions that challenge the Quality of Life and the lifestyle choices in women after the primary breast cancer treatment.
- Long-term post treatment patient management, support and supervision, resulting in improved healthcare outcomes.
To achieve its goals, REBECCA will use AI methodologies, within a privacy-respecting framework, for the development of explainable causal modelling, shaping future RWD use guidelines and best practices for post-cancer treatment.
European collaboration
In REBECCA, KI will collaborate with another 11 partners from 7 European countries. The KI team from the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, will be led by Researcher Ioannis Ioakeimidis
"REBECCA is an important opportunity for us since it will allow the reuse and optimization of methodologies that we have been developing through three previous EU projects", says Ioannis.
"Additionally, we are very excited to extend our methodologies into a new domain; that of the long-term research and support of breast cancer patients, paving the road for important improvements in patient care, both for researchers, clinician and, mainly, for the patients themselves."
During this 4-year project, clinical, health science and technological Universities will work together with industry leaders, public health experts and patient associations, in order to establish RWD as a valuable clinical research and long-term breast cancer patient management tool, and beyond.