The esteemed ESMO Award was established in 1985 to recognise an ESMO member who has made an outstanding contribution to the development of medical oncology by promoting it as a speciality within the European and/or international community
2019 – Eric Van Cutsem, Belgium
The 2019 ESMO Award goes to Eric Van Cutsem, the architect and current head of one of the earliest specialist oncology units for gastrointestinal cancers in Europe at University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium.
The ESMO Award comes in recognition of Van Cutsem’s role as a pioneer in the field of gastrointestinal oncology and honours the contribution of the unit he created – one of the largest in western Europe today – to promoting medical oncology as a specialty within the GI oncology community.
The award will be presented to him at this year’s
ESMO Congress taking place in Barcelona, 27 September - 1 October.
The award is an important stimulus to persevere in our efforts to understand gastrointestinal cancers more profoundly. The most rewarding measure of our success is seeing that we can improve outcomes for patients. If you look at the number of big projects currently ongoing in fundamental and translational research, there are many biomarkers and molecular targets that I hope we will be able to make actionable to generate innovative treatment options in the future.
