PRESENTAZIONE

The meeting aims to update the participants on the use of the CTC assay in cancer patients, ten years later the first published report on its prognostic and predictive value in metastatic breast cancer.
To this purpose, we invited the speakers among the Italians who have already used the CTCs in different cancers.
Furthermore, we will open the seminar with talks by the greatest CTC experts to give an international-scale profile to the conference.
The focus of the meeting will be as following:
1) To sharing the knowledge of European metanalysis results on the CTC use in MBC;
2) To involve all stakeholders in debating the use of CTC assay as companion diagnostic, including: the health professionals, the Health
Technology Assessment service of public hospitals of Veneto region, the Regional authorities that establish the reimbursement of new diagnostic tests, the regulatory authorities of the Italian drug agency;
3) To present the opportunities offered by the European financial support (Horizon 2020) toward proposals of translational medicine for cancer patients that include the CTC assay or the study of circulating compartment.
Through this initiative, we expect to increase the network of our research collaborations around the CTC theme.