Lawrence von Karsa

 

Coordinator, European Cancer Network

Head, Screening Quality Control Group

International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)

 

Lawrence von Karsa worked in the US House of Representatives as a Congressional Page from 1969-1970. He subsequently completed undergraduate training in biology, economics and management at Harvard College in 1971-1975. Seeking to combine interests in medicine and management, he found that there were no joint MD/MBA programmes in the USA in the mid 1970s. Thus, he went to Europe on a Rotary Fellowship where he was soon fascinated by the comprehensive, affordable and high quality health services provided by the German statutory health care system. He subsequently completed basic training in medicine at the University of Tuebingen in Germany in 1986. For his thesis on cardiovascular risk factor screening he received an academic degree in medicine from the University of Erlangen in 1996.

 

From 1990 to 2000 he headed the unit commissioned by the responsible semi-governmental institutions at the national level responsible for monitoring the performance of the German Cancer Screening Programme. In this period, he advised the national authorities on the need to transform the German Cancer Screening Programme from an opportunistic to a population-based approach with continuous quality improvement and quality assurance throughout the entire screening process and he pointed out to the national authorities the potential of implementing endoscopic screening for colorectal cancer. At the same time he served on committees dealing with screening in the Europe Against Cancer programme, particularly the Screening Subcommittee, which under the leadership of Prof. Maurice Tubiana commissioned the first editions of the European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening in the early 1990s.

 

After several years of lobbying at the national level in which he organised numerous meetings and international workshops to exchange experience between national experts and EU screening experts, he was able to coordinate the preparation and implementation of the first population-based pilot projects in cancer screening in Germany in 1998-2004. In those projects serving a total target population of 125,000 women aged 50-69 years, the European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Breast Cancer Screening based on mammography were successfully implemented in three different, widely separated areas. From 2002 to 2004 he advised the national authorities on the development and implementation of the extensive national regulations adopted for the new, population-based breast cancer screening programme in Germany which, in turn, were based on the European Guidelines.

 

From 2000-2005 Lawrence von Karsa served as coordinator of the European Breast Cancer Screening Network which was established under the Europe Against Cancer Programme and has been co-financed by the EU Public Health Programme. Since 2005 he has served as the coordinator of the European Cancer Network in which the EU-financed screening networks for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer have been consolidated. In 2005 he established the coordination office of the European Cancer Network at the International Agency for Research on Cancer where he currently serves as the Head of the Screening Quality Control Group.

 

His main current interest is in development and expansion of the body of knowledge on cancer control through effective implementation of cancer screening and prevention programmes of appropriate quality, taking into account synergies with and needs of other areas of socio-economic activity and the potential of improvement in cancer control to stimulate similar developments in control of other chronic disease. Current core activities overlap extensively with coordination of the European Cancer Network and are focussed on:

 

  • Promotion of international collaboration and exchange of information on quality assurance of cancer screening and prevention programmes, particularly in the areas of status reporting, communication, evaluation, monitoring and accreditation/certification for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening
  • Development and updating of quality assurance guidelines for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening, as well as facilitation of professional support for guideline implementation, primarily in high and medium resource countries
  • Population-based investigation of the epidemiologic significance of abnormalities detected in screening

 

His most recent publications included an update of the European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Cervical Cancer Screening and a report on the implementation of cancer screening programmes in the EU. The latter report shows that at current levels more than 500 million screening examinations will be performed in existing breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening programmes over the next ten years. Given the large number of screening programmes which are still in early phases of development and implementation in the EU, this number is likely to double in the foreseeable future.

 

Recent key publications

 

Karsa L v, Anttila A, Ronco G, Ponti A, Malila N, Arbyn M, Segnan N, Castillo-Beltran M, Boniol M, Ferlay J, Hery C, Sauvaget C, Voti L, Autier P. Cancer screening in the European Union. Report on the implementation of the Council Recommendation on cancer screening - First Report. ISBN 978-92-79-08934-3. European Communities (publ.) Printed in Luxembourg by the services of the European Commission, 2008.

 

Arbyn M, Anttila A, Jordan J, Schenck U, Ronco G, Segnan N, Wiener H, Herbert A, Daniel J, von Karsa L (eds) European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Cervical Cancer Screening - second edition. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 2008. http://bookshop/. europa.eu/

 

Perry N, Broeders M, de Wolf C, Törnberg S, Holland R and von Karsa L. (2007) European guidelines for quality assurance in breast cancer screening and diagnosis. Fourth edition-Summary document. Ann Oncol 19:614-622.         

http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/mdm481?

 


 

Dr. Med. Lawrence von Karsa

 

Academic degrees and professional qualifications

 

1996                    MD, Univ. of Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany

1986                    State exam. in Medicine, Univ. of Tuebingen Medical School, Tuebingen, Germany

1975                    B.A., Biology, Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. USA

 

Occupational and professional activities:

 

since 2005            Head, Screening Quality Control Group,  International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon

since 2005            Network Coordinator, European Cancer Network in which the former EU cancer screening networks are consolidated (development, updating and implementation of European Guidelines for quality assurance in breast cervical and colorectal cancer screening, integration of primary prevention (HPV vaccination) in EU guidelines for cervical cancer screening)

2000 - 2005         Network Coordinator, European Breast Cancer Screening Network

1998 - 2004         Director, German Mammography Screening Coordination Office, Cologne, Germany

1990 - 1998         Project director in social medicine, Central Research Institute of Ambulatory Health Care, Cologne, Germany

1986 - 1990         Researcher, Dept. of Social; Medicine, Univ. of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

 

Recent key publications

  

Karsa L v, Anttila A, Ronco G, Ponti A, Malila N, Arbyn M, Segnan N, Castillo-Beltran M, Boniol M, Ferlay J, Hery C, Sauvaget C, Voti L, Autier P. Cancer screening in the European Union. Report on the implementation of the Council Recommendation on cancer screening - First Report. ISBN 978-92-79-08934-3. European Communities (publ.) Printed in Luxembourg by the services of the European Commission, 2008.

 

Arbyn M, Anttila A, Jordan J, Schenck U, Ronco G, Segnan N, Wiener H, Herbert A, Daniel J, Karsa L v (eds) European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Cervical Cancer Screening - second edition. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 2008. http://bookshop/. europa.eu/

 

Perry N, Broeders M, de Wolf C, Törnberg S, Holland R and Karsa L v (2007) European guidelines for quality assurance in breast cancer screening and diagnosis. Fourth edition-Summary document. Ann Oncol 19:614-622.       

http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/mdm481?

 

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