About

What? Why? Where?

About ENDEAVOR

ENDEAVOR is an EU-funded research project of 5 years carried out by a consortium of 15 academic partners, 2 general hospitals and 2 industrial partners. It aims to implement an innovative risk stratification method: we want to better determine which Barrett’s esophagus (BE) patients are at risk to develop more invasive cancer and may poorly respond to endoscopic therapy. Like that, we will be able to direct the best treatment and select the most optimal subsequent surveillance program for each patient.

Endeavor WHAT?

WHAT is the ENDEAVOR research project?

ENDEAVOR is a European research project, funded by the European Union, and is short for “Endoscopic brush cytology and single cell clonal dynamics of early esophageal adenocarcinoma for defining cost effective surveillance strategies and prediction of cancer recurrence”.

In other words, with the ENDEAVOR project we would like to develop a cost-effective method to identify patients with Barrett’s esophagus (BE) who are at high risk of developing esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). EAC is a subtype of esophageal cancer. By determining the risk of each patient, doctors will be able to select the best treatment and surveillance program for each individual. Thus, we aim to improve the patient’s quality of life, assist clinicians to make better-informed decisions using a patient-centered approach and reduce healthcare costs.

Get a visual overview and find out more about our Research

For Patients

For Researchers

Endeavor WHY?

WHY do we perform the ENDEAVOR research project?

Patients with Barrett’s Esophagus (BE) have a higher risk of developing esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC, subtype of esophageal cancer). Patients with early cancers are treated with endoscopic therapy to remove the cancerous tissue. Currently, it is impossible to predict how BE patients with early cancer will respond to this endoscopic therapy: will the cancer stay away, or will they have recurrent disease? Therefore, all treated BE patients need to remain in frequent endoscopic surveillance. This leads to overtreatment of >90% of BE patients and potential undertreatment of the small group with aggressive disease. In turn, this leads to:

• A low-cost effectiveness of endoscopic therapies (more endoscopies than needed for >90% of patients = expensive)
• Poor quality of life of patients (might have to undergo more endoscopies than necessary = overtreatment, or do not get enough endoscopic surveillance = undertreatment)
• Poor satisfaction of health care providers (since they cannot determine the best possible surveillance frequency for each individual patient due to lack of knowledge about the patient’s individual risk)

Therefore, implementing a cost-effective risk stratification method (determining the risk of each patient) for early EAC in BE patients is a major unmet medical need. Get a visual overview and find out more about our Research.

For Patients

For Researchers