The EDEN Initiative, a cooperative research program spearheaded by ANZGOG, is a pionnering project aimed at bridging the gap in endometrial cancer research. It is specifically geared towards supporting endometrial cancer patients in Australia and New Zealand.
Understanding Endometrial Cancer
Endometrial cancer, a type of uterine cancer, is the leading gynaecological cancer in Australia, with its incidence also on the rise globally. Over the past decade, Australia has seen a significant 40% surge in endometrial cancer diagnoses. 3,343 Australian women and 723 New Zealand women are diagnosed with uterine cancer each year.
While many patients with endometrial cancer have a good chance of survival, certain complications such as obesity, late diagnosis, fertility concerns in younger women, along with the sharp rise in diagnosis, exacerbate the risk, financial burden, and overall impact of the disease.
The EDEN Initiative aims to enhance patient survival rates, better their quality of life, and foster a culture of shared research across five key domains: prevention, risk assessment, early diagnosis, surgical innovations, adjuvant and recurrent treatments, survivorship, surveillance and rehabilitation, translational research, and advocacy and funding.
The Objectives of the EDEN Initiative
The EDEN Initiative is an integral step towards curbing the endometrial cancer trend and enhancing patient care through innovative research. The lack of a national organization exclusively dedicated to endometrial cancer makes EDEN's role even more crucial in fostering cooperative efforts to tackle this challenge.
EDEN is crucial because it's trying to stop the increase of endometrial cancer and come up with better treatments through new research. There's no other national group that's only focused on endometrial cancer, and EDEN is trying to get more people to work together on this problem.
EDEN's goal is to help women live longer, make their lives better, and work together on research in five important areas: stopping the cancer before it starts, figuring out who's at risk, finding the cancer early, improving surgery, and coming up with better treatments for cancer that comes back.
A key highlight of the EDEN Initiative is its emphasis on translational research, i.e. it's focused on turning research into real-life treatments. This means that the research EDEN does is made to go straight into treating women with endometrial cancer, which can really help them. Also, the results of EDEN's research will help guide international work on endometrial cancer.
Why EDEN Matters
The EDEN Initiative has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of endometrial cancer patients and their loved ones. With the escalating prevalence of endometrial cancer, it is important now more than ever to foster a culture of collaborative research to improve the of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship of this disease.
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Watch Professor Linda Mileshkin, Chair of the EDEN Initiative & Medical Oncologist speak about the program.
