Addressing often overlooked aspects of cancer care
Treating cancer effectively means addressing more than the disease alone. ECO’s report Treating the Whole Patient highlights three often under-addressed dimensions of cancer care that are essential to patient outcomes, safety and quality of life: medical nutrition, antimicrobial resistance, and healthcare-acquired infections. Despite their importance, these areas remain too often overlooked in policy and practice across Europe.
Based on ECO’s Community 365 Roundtable Meeting held in May 2025, this report brings together expert insight, patient experience and policy discussion to examine how supportive care can be better integrated into cancer care. It makes the case for moving from awareness to action and for embedding nutrition, infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship more firmly within cancer strategies, care pathways and health system planning.
The report identifies three key areas for action:
Medical nutrition
- Strengthen and formalise the role of dietitians within cancer care pathways
- Embed malnutrition screening and clinical nutrition services as routine elements of care
- Integrate nutrition-related indicators into cancer data systems
- Support peer-to-peer mechanisms for patients with long-term nutritional needs
Antimicrobial resistance
- Strengthen awareness and education for clinicians and the wider public
- Address the market failure in antibiotic development through new incentive models
- Better recognise and resource the pharmacy profession in antimicrobial stewardship
- Advance a stronger One Health approach across sectors
Healthcare-acquired infections
- Strengthen education and multidisciplinary collaboration
- Reduce unnecessary catheterisation
- Promote EU-level strategic action on CAUTIs
- Improve surveillance, monitoring and data quality
