Luxembourg’s Cancer Foundation (Fondation Cancer) funds a research project of LIH’s Department of Population Health entitled ‘Assistance based on rules and cases’. The project is part of the activities of the National Cancer Registry, managed by LIH and aimed at collecting data on cancer incidence and treatment in Luxembourg.

On 20th January 2016, Dr Carlo Bock, Chairman of the Cancer Foundation, and Lucienne Thommes, Director of the Cancer Foundation, handed over a check of 282,032 € to project leader Michaël Schnell, in the presence of Dr Catherine Larue, CEO of LIH, and Dr Michel Untereiner, Scientific Director of the National Cancer Registry.

‘For registries, one of the main concerns is the quality of the collected data’, tells Michaël Schnell. ’The project consists in the construction of a decision support system to improve the quality of data collection. The informatics tool to be developed will assist registry encoders in the interpretation of available sources, by facilitating the use of international encoding standards, such as those published by the European Network of Cancer Registries. Technically speaking, the recommendations and information given to encoders will be based on reasoning from rules and cases’, he explains further.

The informatics tool will not only improve data quality for the National Cancer Registry but also reduce data processing time. Thus, the description of cancer incidence and treatment will be refined, epidemiological data on cancer will be available faster for interested parties, and eventually patient follow-up will be more efficient.

‘I am grateful that the research project received financial support, also for personal reasons. It allows me to start a PhD thesis’, states Michaël. He is now registered as PhD candidate, supervised by Dr Jean Lieber and Dr Nicolas Jay from the University of Lorraine, with which he will intensively collaborate throughout the project.

Photo above (from left to right): Dr Catherine Larue (CEO of LIH), Dr Carlo Bock (Chairman of the Cancer Foundation), Michaël Schnell (project leader, Department of Population Health, LIH), Dr Michel Untereiner (Scientific Director of the National Cancer Registry) and Lucienne Thommes (Director of the Cancer Foundation).