Rotterdam, Netherlands

Website

OVERVIEW

Erasmus Medical Centre (Erasmus MC) Cancer Institute, part of the Erasmus University academic hospital in Rotterdam, Netherlands, has an international reputation for cancer research. Much of the focus is on translational research and early drug development, and also socio-economic, organisational and public health aspects of cancer control and care.

Notable contributions include phase I clinical trials of cytotoxic, targeted and supportive therapies, including capecitabine, taxotere, irinotecan, imatinib and the anti-emetic, ondansetron. An emphasis on thorough pharmacological investigation is a hallmark of the clinical drug development work, according to Jaap Verweij, who set up an early phase clinical trials unit in 1986 that introduced the idea of the ‘phase 0’ trial, where only a small dose of a drug is tested to see how it behaves in the body before moving to higher doses at phase I and possible treatment benefit.

In the early 1990s the centre was a pioneer in isolated limb perfusion with TNF-alpha, to avoid amputations in patients with soft tissue sarcomas. The translational element of this work contributed to understanding of the role of the immune system in cancer. Alexander Eggermont, who established the department of surgical oncology at Erasmus MC which, together with the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, led on the TNF-alpha research, went on to lead Gustave Roussy in Paris from 2010 to 2019, when it led in immune checkpoint blockades.

The randomised clinical trial evidence demonstrating the value of PSA screening to reduce mortality from prostate cancer, and the development of strategies to minimise overdiagnosis, originated from the department of urology at Erasmus University, under the leadership of Fritz Schroeder.

The development of a virtual approach to biobanking in Europe also owes much to work at Erasmus MC with the TubaBaFrost initiative.

The history of the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute starts in 1914 with the treatment of cancer patients by the Rotterdam Radiotherapy Institute. Radiologist Daniël den Hoed, who became director in 1940 until his untimely death in 1950, is credited with developing the institute into a cancer treatment centre.

The institute joined forces with the Rotterdam Foundation for Rheumatism to set up a new facility that opened in 1960 as the Daniël den Hoed Clinic, which became an internationally recognised multidisciplinary cancer institute.

In 1995 the clinic merged with Rotterdam Academic Hospital to ensure seamless access to specialties needed to support cancer care, and which then became the Erasmus MC in 2002. Since 2013, all oncological care, treatment, education and research has come together in the Erasmus MC Cancer Institute.

More detail (in Dutch) on the history of cancer at Erasmus MC here. Cancer World interviews with Jaap Verweij and Alexander Eggermont have details on more recent history.