Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) cause over 4 million deaths in Europe each year and mass disability: within the coming decades the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) estimate is expected to rise from a loss of 85 million DALYs in 1990 to a loss of 150 million DALYs globally in 2020. Moreover, patient numbers are expected to rise rapidly in the next decades, due to an ageing society such that the burden of CVD for both patients and the healthcare sector will further rise. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is recognised as an effective approach for risk reduction and long term care of patients facing cardiovascular diseases (CVD). However, knowledge on CR in the elderly is limited, while tailoring of CR programmes to the elderly is needed. The reasons for this relates to the following aspects: 1) the elderly account for the majority of cardiac admissions and procedures, yet studies on cardiac rehabilitation have traditionally focused on younger patients , 2) many older patients who would derive benefit from CR interventions, do not participate, 3) there is a lack of commitment and adherence to CR within in the older population with only a minority completing the full programme and 4) a cardiovascular event in elderly patients could be a trigger for disability and dependence. Knowledge is lacking on effective approaches for this specific target group and moreover the specific challenges related to the target group must be addressed. With the ambition to achieve a breakthrough in cardiac care, the main objective of EU-CaRE is thus to obtain the evidence base to improve, tailor and optimise CR programmes regarding sustainable effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and participation level in the elderly. This is achieved through an comparative effectiveness analysis of current conventional cardiac rehabilitation programmes (CR), as well as new innovative mobile telemonitoring guided cardiac rehabilitation (mCR). As such, the project addresses the objectives of call PHC 17.

Cancers of the Head and Neck Region (HNC) are the 6th more deadly cancers worldwide: in Europe ~150.000 new cases are detected and ~70.000 patients die every year. The main reasons for high mortality are the fact that the majority of cases are diagnosed in advanced Stage and the intrinsic heterogeneity of such tumors. At present the only adopted treatment decision method is based on TNM (Tumor-lymph-Nodes-Metastasis) prognostic system, that considers only a few risk factors such as smoking, alcohol abuse and more recently HPV. The TNM system is therefore inadequate to capture the patient-specific biomolecular characteristics of the tumor. HNC treatments can have hard impact on patient’s aesthetics and functionalities and, due to their toxicity, can cause severe morbidity and greatly deteriorate patient’s quality of life. A more precise prognostic prediction than the current TNM system is needed that allows implementing the first-line treatment that maximizes the therapeutic result and minimizes the impacts of therapy. BD2Decide DSS provides clinicians with the "means" and all the necessary information to tailor treatment and care delivery pathway to each and any HNC patient during their usual practice, in contrast to current “one-size-fits-all approach”. BD2Decide realizes and validates an Integrated Decision Support System that links population-specific epidemiology and behavioral data, patient-specific genomic, pathology, clinical and imaging data with big data techniques, multiscale prognostic models. Advanced graphical visualization tools are developed for prognostic data disclosure and patient co-participation to the selected treatment. BD2Decide will improve the clinical decision process, uncover new patient-specific patterns that can improve care, and create a virtuous circle of learning. A multicentric clinical study with more than 1.000 patients will be used to validate the system.

Experts in virology, immunology and clinical hepatitis B patient care with an excellent research and translational track record in hepatitis B virus (HBV)-host interaction form the interdisciplinary TherVacB consortium. They jointly tackle the major challenges in HBV therapy – the virus’s resistance to cure. TherVacB aims at breaking immune tolerance in chronic HBV infection and achieving HBV cure. Occurrence of neutralizing antibodies and HBV-specific T cell responses characterize spontaneous resolution of HBV infection that are lacking in chronic infection. We will use our IP-protected heterologous prime-boost therapeutic vaccination scheme with proven efficacy in preclinical models of hepatitis B to target and activate B and T cell responses. Two protein prime injections with clinically approved, adjuvanted particulate HBV S and core protein antigens shall induce neutralizing antibodies and prime T cells that are boosted with an MVA vector expressing HBV core, S, L and polymerase antigens covering >95% of HBV found worldwide. Having secured significant funding and partnerships to obtain GMP-produced vaccine components and to prepare a first-in-human application, TherVacB aims at a clinical proof-of-concept of the therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine in patients with chronic hepatitis B. The consortium will establish a patient registry and perform a multi-center phase Ib/IIa clinical trial that aims at proving safety of the therapeutic vaccine and inducing immune control of chronic HBV infection. One study arm will be realized in Tanzania to build up local capacity, because Africa carries a large burden of HBV infection but lacks diagnostic and therapeutic options. An innovative immune monitoring will quantify HBV-specific immunity and define novel biomarkers to predict treatment response. Finally an ethical and an empirical study will evaluate the recruitment of patients by social media which is very effective for infectious diseases that tend to stigmatize patients