Our international work

In order to beat cancer faster, we need a plurality networks, knowledge, experiences and perspectives of others. We also need to contribute with knowledge and resources to strengthen the capacity of other actors and organisations.

Collaboration and exchange of experiences and best practices with others contributes to a positive development and reduction of the global cancer burden. It can also help create conditions for fewer people to be affected by cancer in Sweden and for Swedish patients to receive the best and most equitable care possible.

The Swedish Cancer Society collaborates with several different international actors, including UICC – the world's largest member organisation for cancer issues. Our Secretary General, Ulrika Årehed Kågström, is President of UICC from 2024 to 2026.

Inequity as a priority

One of the top priorities during the UICC-presidency will be to highlight and combat inequity within cancer treatment and care.

It is unacceptable that 7 out of 10 cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. But we also see inequities in Sweden. Not everyone has the same access to early detection and treatment – a reality that must change.

To push the issue of inequities forward, Ulrika Årehed Kågström will, among other things, concrete initiatives and positive examples from around the world of how we can achieve increased equity across the cancer continuum.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) also highly prioritised

AMR is another issue that is of global importance.

Today, it is estimated that at least one in five cancer patients globally will need antibiotics during their treatment, and drug-resistant infections affect cancer patients disproportionately.

Effective antibiotics are a prerequisite for cancer treatment and care to continue to function, and AMR is a serious threat to successful cancer treatment and care.

Importance of work within the EU

Europe is currently home to a tenth of the world's population, but a quarter of the world's cancer cases.

Unless strong measures are taken, cancer cases in the EU are expected to increase by 24 percent by 2035. It will then become the most common cause of death in the EU. The total economic impact of cancer in Europe is estimated to exceed EUR 100 billion per year. This development affects us all.

The challenges are common and we can't beat cancer alone. European elections were held in June 2024 affecting the issue of cancer in the EU, as we will have a new Commissioner responsible for our issues has been installed.

Healthcare policy is the responsibility of each individual member state. That should remain the case, but the work currently underway within the framework of the EU's Health Union constitutes an important complement to national policies.

Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan

The European Health Union includes ambitious efforts in the field of cancer through Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP), which aims to “turn the tide on cancer across the EU and create a healthier, fairer and more sustainable future for all.”

The plan covers the entire cancer continuum and focuses on four main areas: prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment, and improved quality of life for cancer patients and survivors.

The goals and priorities of EBCP are therefore in line with the Swedish Cancer Society’s 2030 Strategy. To achieve the ambitious goals of EBCP, we must engage in dialogue on how this can be accomplished in practice and enable a mutual exchange of knowledge between EU Member States.

EBCP and the EU’s work in the field of cancer are important for driving progress in prevention, early detection, treatment and quality of life.

Political commitment will be crucial in the years ahead. Therefore, we must all now ensure that the ambitious work that the previous European Commission initiated will continue.

The EBCP sets out a clear vision, but the commitment to act remains to be proven in the coming years. This responsibility lies primarily with the European Commission, the members of the European Parliament, but also with the respective member states.

Expert Committee for Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan

Between June 2023 and March 2026, the Swedish Cancer Society commissioned an independent expert committee to review the implementation of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP) in Sweden.

The committee’s overall assessment was that Sweden’s ambitions were largely in line with the goals of the EBCP. Much of this work was already in place before the plan was launched, particularly within areas such as vaccination, screening and cancer treatment.

At the same time, the EBCP had limited direct impact on governance and clinical practice in Sweden. However, the plan contributed to knowledge exchange and strengthened cooperation through EU-funded projects and collaboration between member states.

One of the committee’s main conclusions was that inequalities remain a major challenge in Sweden across several fields covered by the EBCP. Inequalities linked to geographical location, country of birth, sex, age, and physical or mental disabilities were particularly evident in prevention and early detection.

For example, there were major differences in participation in screening programmes and in access to free HPV and hepatitis B vaccination for adults in risk groups.

The committee also emphasised the need to give higher priority to cancer prevention and to strengthen long-term national coordination.

During the review period, several positive steps were also taken, including efforts to establish a national Cancer Mission Hub. This could contribute to stronger national coordination and a more long-term and coordinated implementation of the EBCP in Sweden.

In April 2025, the committee published a report assessing Sweden’s implementation of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.

Additional reports, consultation responses and other publications from the committee are available in Swedish on the committee’s website.

Länk till PDF = Read the summary

Länk till PDF = Read the full report

Tobacco

More research and knowledge is needed regarding the long-term health risks and harms of non-medicinal nicotine products. However, since these products are relatively new on the market, the long-term consequences will only be apparent in the future.

The precautionary principle should therefore be applied both nationally and internationally to non-medicinal nicotine products.

The successful regulatory framework that has made cigarettes less attractive and available, such as bans on flavour and limited nicotine content, should also apply to non-medicinal nicotine products.

These measures would help protect children and young people from being tempted to start using the products, and in the long run reduce the risk of them starting to smoke.

Effective and robust measures to reduce tobacco and nicotine consumption are essential in order to reduce the number of people affected by cancer and other non-communicable diseases.

Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan includes the goal of a tobacco-free generation by 2040, with less than five percent of the population using tobacco. To achieve this, it is crucial that the EU updates the Tobacco Products Directive and the Tobacco Taxation Directive.

We have gathererd key takeaways in reducing smoking and the challenges that remain here:

Swedish tobacco policy

Healthy diet and preventing obesity

In Sweden, as well as in many other European countries, the proportion of children and young people with unhealthy eating habits is increasing. It is not a sudden change in our eating habits but a gradual change in the society around us that has driven the increase, and the trend is continuing in the wrong direction.

The WHO is gauging that obesity may overtake smoking as the largest preventable risk factor for cancer.

To improve our eating habits and prevent both obesity and cancer, efforts are needed at a societal level in creating a healthier food environment. Price, supply and marketing are some of the factors that control our food choices today.

The challenges of unhealthy eating habits are common to many EU countries and there is reason for the EU to make joint decisions to improve eating habits. The Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan identifies healthy diet as an important area.

A Child Rights Impact Assessment on Marketing of Unhealthy Food

Preventing childhood overweight and obesity Policy recommendations from the Nordic Cancer Societies

HPV (screening)

One virus, HPV (human papillomavirus), is responsible for virtually all cervical cancer.

In 2020, the WHO decided to unite the world's countries around a common goal of eradicating cervical cancer. The most important measures that have been identified are vaccinations against HPV and screening for HPV.

Here, Sweden is well positioned in a global perspective, with an established program for screening and vaccination of girls and, from autumn 2020, also of boys. But today adult women in Sweden today have not all received the vaccine in school. Therefore Sweden's regions offer all women born in 1994-1999 free vaccination against HPV up until July 2025. An important step in the work to eliminate the HPV virus and eradicate cervical cancer.

An important step in the work to eliminate the HPV virus and eradicate cervical cancer.

The Swedish Cancer Society has been very active in the work to eradicate cervical cancer. During 2023 we met with political decision-makers in almost all 21 regions to conduct a dialogue on how we can work together to get more people to participate in the catch-up vaccinations. The message was clear: targeted efforts and new ways of working are needed.

In order to combat the differences in screening and HPV-vaccination participation, we have produced a guide compiling evidence-based tools in an easy-to-understand format. This guide aims to support proactive efforts to encourage more people in Sweden to attend cancer screening and catch-up HPV vaccination.

The target groups in the guide are women born abroad who reside in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, people in rural areas, individuals with disabilities, people with mental health conditions, long-term non-attendees of cancer screening, everyone called to attend cancer screening and catch-up HPV vaccination (women born between 1994 and 1999).

Viruses know no borders, and therefore it is important that the work to eradicate cervical cancer is a global mission. 

AMR

The Swedish Cancer Society has for many years worked to highlight the danger of AMR in cancer control and care.

In 2017, we played a pivotal role in advocating for the Union of International Cancer Control (UICC) to address AMR more actively, and it has since become one of the UICC’s highest priorities.

More recently we have, in collaboration with the Swedish strategic program against antibiotic resistance (Strama), looked at the level of antibiotic prescriptions collected by patients with newly diagnosed cancer compared to the general population. The survey was published in May 2024 and showed that cancer patients in Sweden collect three times as many prescribed antibiotics than the general population.

Antibiotics play a crucial role in a large part of the cancer treatments that are carried out, which is why the issue of AMR is one of the major future issues in the field of cancer.

Today, it is estimated that at least one in five cancer patients will need antibiotics during their treatment, and drug-resistant infections affect cancer patients disproportionately. Effective antibiotics are a prerequisite for cancer treatment and care to continue to function, and AMR is a serious threat to successful cancer treatment and care.

Whether it is for surgery, chemotherapy or stem cell transplants, the availability of antibiotics is crucial for cancer treatment and care outcomes.

Today, the threat of AMR, constitutes a major issue that needs to be urgently addressed to ensure effective cancer control. AMR spreads across borders, and efforts to address it must therefore be conducted both nationally and globally.

We are actively engaged in the importance of spreading awareness at the national level as well as advocating for the threat of AMR to be included in the international political agenda.

Ensuring access to effective antibiotics largely depends on global efforts in slowing down the development of resistant bacteria and developing new antibiotics.

Therefore, we must strengthen an already great international commitment regarding AMR, and ensure everyone's right to effective antibiotics by working parallel in three areas:

1. Advocacy
   Ensuring that the issue of addressing AMR for better cancer treatment and care outcomes is a priority on the global health agenda.
2. Engagement of the health workforce
   Health care personnel are leaders in addressing this issue and have an active role in promoting attention to AMR, ensuring the appropriate use of medicines and strong infection control practice in medical settings, as well as providing key input to national policy on AMR.
3. Ensuring access to treatment
   Prioritising access to and rational use of antimicrobials and ensuring access to diagnostics.

Life science/clinical trials

In order to solve the most complex challenges in cancer research, international collaborations between academia, healthcare and industry are a prerequisite.

Cancer research in Sweden should be world-leading and of high quality. This means that Sweden needs to have an increased presence in the international arena, and in particular in the European arena.

It is necessary that Swedish researchers are given favorable conditions for international collaborations and exchanges in order to promote new perspectives and ideas.

By actively participating in international collaborations, an environment is created where researchers can learn from each other, exchange best practices and benefit from each other's unique skills, as well as strengthen their professional networks.

Competition for skills between countries is high and Sweden needs to be an attractive country for various actors in life science to conduct their research in. Excellent research environments, good access to health data and favorable working conditions for researchers are therefore crucial to attract the most talented and prominent researchers.

Bilateral special cooperation agreements between Sweden and other countries also promote the exchange of knowledge and experience in research, one example of which is the Cancer Moonshot initiative, which has been signed between the governments of Sweden and the United States.

Clinical research is often the bridge between basic research and actual application in healthcare. However, healthcare research missions are often overshadowed by the mission to produce care and treatment.

Since the beginning of the 2000s, the proportion of doctors with research degrees has decreased by more than 15 percent. At the same time, the business community points to both challenges and reduced interest in clinical trials in Sweden.

However, in order for more cancer patients to be offered better treatments and medicines, the number of clinical trials must increase and more patients must be given the opportunity to participate in clinical studies and trials – regardless of where in the country the patient lives.