NKI-AVL is honoured to host the OECI annual General Assembly and the related Scientific Conference June 2011 in Amsterdam. During the General Assembly (restricted to OECI members only) NKI-AVL's Executive Board Member Professor Wim van Harten will be installed as President of the OECI, a task that he will fulfill for the next three years. During this period the main challenges in the oncological field on European level will be to construct a network of designated centers of excellence with a good embedding in national care infrastructure, the stimulation of uniform quality within and between countries through the accreditation of sufficient numbers of OECI member organisations and start a lobby with the EU to create an optimal research and development infrastructure for translational research and innovation. The title of this years Scientific Conference is 'Organising Personalized Medicine in Oncology' and OECI as well as NKI-AVL expect a considerable attendance, not in the least due to the well-known and respected speakers. Providing oncologic care demands a multidisciplinary setting and state of the art diagnostic and therapeutic infrastructure. An individual physician is no longer able to guarantee quality, state of the art care on his/her own. Organising the total setting and clinical pathways becomes increasingly important. In case a translational research setting is present, such as to be found in comprehensive cancer centers, optimally organising this complex setting is essential. Personalised Medicine is expected to result in a dramatically change for both patients and everyone involved in oncology and oncological care. Focussing on the molecular signatures of the patients in order to fight their personal disease requires clinical trials with large numbers of patients and many subgroups and its translation into clinical practice provides new challenges. Comprehensiveness has never been as important as it is now and the near future while science, technology, clinical care and oncological care will be fused in order to completely develop personalized medicine in oncology.
