News
Welcome back to the ACADI newsletter! We hope that, wherever you are in the world, the sun is shining. As spring begins in Luxembourg, we have some exciting developments to share with you.
Grants
We were funded! Dr Sophie Pilleron collaborated on a Horizon Europe grant co-ordinated by the University of Limoges entitled Empowering People Living with Chronic Disease and Frontline Health Workers to Tackle the Burden of Chronic Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa (EMPOWER). The project will train health workers on the ground in Togo and Benin, using strategies and digital health tools recommended by the World Health Organization to tackle the burden of chronic diseases. Dr Pilleron, Dr India Pinker, and a PhD student will lead the evaluation of the intervention’s implementation in these settings. The project is due to start in September 2025.
In other developments, the PACO project was recycled to form the basis of a proposal for an AFR to fund a PhD position in our team. Watch this space to hear about the outcome later in the year.
Publications
The ACADI team has recently published several new papers!
Dr Sophie Pilleron has published her second article with Dr Esther Bastiaannet on the “Epidemiology of cancer in older adults: a systematic review of age-related differences in solid malignancies treatment”. You can read the article here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11912-025-01638-6
Dr Pilleron has published an article entitled: “Models of care and associated targeted implementation strategies for cancer survivorship support in Europe: a scoping review protocol” in collaboration with colleagues from the EU COST Action CA21152-Implementation Network Europe for Cancer Survivorship Care. You can read this work here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39956597/
Dr Pilleron has also published an article entitled “Age-related differences in staging, treatment and net survival in relation to frailty in adults with colon cancer in England: an analysis of the COloRECTal cancer data repository (CORECT-R) resource”. You can read these interesting findings here: https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/54/2/afaf025/8021098?login=false
Dr India Pinker has had her latest work accepted for publication in ESMO Open. This work, entitled “Representation of Geriatric Oncology in cancer care guidelines in Europe: A scoping review by the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG)” was a collaborative piece with 27 oncological professionals across Europe. Watch this space for the link to the article in press!
Dr Pilleron and Dr Pinker have also co-authored a piece in collaboration with the SIOG Methods Working Group, detailing the expertise and services the group may offer researchers in geriatric oncology. You can read this piece here: https://www.geriatriconcology.net/article/S1879-4068(25)00033-5/fulltext
Outreach activities
Dr Pauline Duquenne took part in the 2025 edition of Researchers at School organised by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR). Along with Lena Schaack, a PhD student at the University of Luxembourg, she visited Lycée Robert-Schuman in Luxembourg to share their career paths in research and introduce secondary school students to the world of scientific research.
Journal Club
In January, Dr Clémence Bafei started a departmental journal club that organises monthly meetings to discuss research methods and key articles on these methods with the goal of sharing knowledge and promoting appropriate method use in research.
The two previous sessions were very well attended, covering key topics. The February edition, in which Dr Gloria Aguayo presented a methodological paper on Directed Acyclic Graphs, saw lively discussion and debate on how they may be used to improve causal research. In March, Ornela Ingrid Siapdje Tchomkem – who recently joined us as an intern in our team – presented an article on target trial emulation as a framework for designing and analysing observational studies.
You can read the discussed articles here:
Directed Acyclic Graphs: https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(21)00240-7/fulltext
Target trials: https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(16)30136-6/fulltext
If you’d like to know more about the monthly journal club, please get in touch with Dr Bafei at clemence.bafei@lih.lu
Ethics Application
Upon advice from the National Ethics Committee, the REDICO-Qual project protocol was split into two projects. The project has now been split to focus on two separate points on the cancer journey – diagnosis and treatment decision making. The first of the two (now entitled REDICO-Diag) has been submitted for ethical review by Gladys Langue, and is to be defended in early April.
Team news
Gladys Langue, our team’s PhD student, will complete a research stay with the Clinical Epidemiology and Ageing (CEPIA) team at the Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédical in Paris, to work on a joint project using the Elderly Cancer Patients (ELCAPA) cohort data. We are excited to see what comes from this exciting collaboration and the professional development for Gladys on her first external research stay.
On the 24th and 25th of March, Dr Clémence Bafei attended a training course entitled “Regulatory-Grade Causal Inference from Observational Data” in Barcelona, Spain. She describes her experience below:
I recently attended the Regulatory-Grade Causal Inference from Observational Data course organized by RTI Health Solutions in Barcelona. The course facilitators, Dr. Xavier Garcia de Albéniz and Dr. Miguel Hernán, provided excellent instruction. It was a valuable experience, allowing me to deepen my understanding of target trial emulation—including answers to my specific questions on the topic. ~ Dr Clémence Bafei
Until next time, keep well!
The ACADI Team