One of the Observatory’s most valuable instruments will be a common database, which can be readily accessed and modified via Internet. Contributions by specialists, general practitioners, patients, and patient associations will allow us to create a unique experience and an excellent opportunity for scientific progress and the well-being of patients and their families.
The Observatory database will include a registry of Italian patients with thyroid cancer and a second registry of Italian kindreds with familial thyroid cancer. These instruments will be used to monitor thyroid cancer management in Italy and the application of international practice guidelines. Analysis of the collected data will be allow us to provide valuable indications to national and regional health-care authorities for improving the overall management of patients with thyroid cancers.
Each year, the Observatory will organize a forum, where the activities and achievements of the past year will reviewed and discussed.
In short, the Observatory will act as a catalyst, at the national and international levels, promoting synergic, multidisciplinary approaches to the complex clinical management of thyroid cancer.
The Observatory will encourage and facilitate interaction at the scientific, professional, and operative levels between professionals from different sectors, who are involved in the management of thyroid cancer. This will include the following activities:
- Providing support for clinical, basic, and translation research projects and for young researchers engaged in these projects;
- Developing, planning, and conducting pre-clinical and clinical trials;
- Developing and conducting multicenter clinical trials on benign and malignant nodular thyroid diseases;
- Taking part in projects aimed at the development of new drugs and treatment regimes;
- Promoting and/or organizing scientific conferences, meetings, seminars, courses, and publications
- Promoting and developing a care network that can help patients find quality care
- Training physicians on the care of patients with thyroid cancer and the management of oncological treatment and its complications (postgraduate training and/or master degrees)
- Developing tools and initiatives for keeping thyroid cancer patients informed on their disease and on experimental clinical trials being conducted within the ITCO network.