Breast Cancer Awareness Month: new EU4Health projects working on awareness raising and data integration

With 374 800 new estimated cases and 95 800 estimated deaths in the EU in 2022, breast cancer is the most diagnosed cancer for women and the most common cause of death from cancer in women.

Three projects have recently been launched under the EU4Health programme to advance breast cancer detection and care in Europe and contribute to Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.

CHOICE: empowering women with BRCA mutation

The CHOICE project (Comprehensive Health Options and Information for Cancer Education), which started on 1 June 2025, focuses on empowering women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are genes that help fix damaged DNA in our cells. Mutations in these genes can increase the risk of breast, ovarian and other cancers. Despite available preventive measures like increased screening and risk-reducing surgeries, misconceptions, emotional distress and a lack of health information can make some women unwilling to take them up.

To address these barriers, CHOICE will provide healthcare professionals with communication tools and educational resources, to help women make informed health choices. CHOICE will develop targeted educational material, health literacy resources, training programmes and AI-powered interactive decision-making tools tailored specifically to the needs of women with BRCA mutations.

BreastSCan and UNICA: revolutionising cancer screening and data sharing

These projects started in September 2025 and will help integrate cancer images into the Cancer Image Europe platform, the European federated infrastructure for cancer images, and foster AI uptake in cancer screening. They will be collaborating closely with the EUCAIM project in the context of the European Cancer Imaging Initiative.

BreastSCan will build a dataset from breast cancer screenings across Europe and test innovative artificial intelligence (AI) tools to improve diagnosis and care. The project will test AI tools for screening in specific use cases, such as image preprocessing, breast density classification, lesion detection and risk stratification. The ultimate goal is to improve data sharing, enrichment, and research across Europe, to increase the number of countries involved in the European Cancer Imaging Initiative, and strengthen alignment with the European Health Data Space and its infrastructures.

UNICA will bring breast, lung, and prostate cancer screening imaging data into the to Cancer Image Europe platform, the European federated infrastructure for cancer images. The project will contribute data from 12 medical centers from diverse regions across Europe and standardise the collected data so it can be used by researchers for the development of trustworthy innovative AI tools in cancer. Access to diverse and representative datasets is key for developing trustworthy and scalable AI solutions.

UNICA also aims to demonstrate the benefits of AI-based technologies for cancer image analysis by piloting advanced AI models. It will also develop communication material to encourage patients to voluntarily share their data.

Background

EU4Health is the fourth and largest of the EU health programmes. The EU4Health programme goes beyond an ambitious response to the COVID-19 crisis to address the resilience of European healthcare systems. The programme provides funding to national authorities, health organisations and other bodies through grants and public procurement, contributing to a healthier Europe. HaDEA manages the vast majority of the total EU4Health budget and implements the programme by managing calls for proposals and calls for tenders from 2021 to 2027.