About
COMPASS aims to optimise the cardiovascular health of cancer patients and survivors by developing an end-to-end, patient-centred cardio-oncology care pathway.
The project focuses on developing solutions predicting cardiotoxicity risk, detecting cardiovascular disease at earlier stages, supporting personalised treatment decisions, and enabling long-term monitoring through the integration of clinical expertise, advanced diagnostics, real-world data and artificial intelligence.
Objectives
Early biomarker discovery
Identify and validate novel molecular, imaging and physiological biomarkers to detect early signs of cardiotoxicity before irreversible cardiac damage occurs.
AI-driven Clinical Decision Support
Deliver an interoperable, explainable AI-based CDSS to support clinicians in balancing effective cancer treatment with cardiovascular safety.
Personalised risk prediction
Develop AI-driven predictive models that integrate multimodal data (imaging, biomarkers, genomics, clinical data) to stratify individual cardiovascular risk.
Cardio-oncology care pathways
Establish harmonised, multidisciplinary care models that improve coordination between oncology and cardiology across Europe.
Real-time monitoring
Enable continuous, non-invasive monitoring of cardiac health using wearable technologies and digital health solutions to support timely clinical intervention.
Health, sustainability and regulatory integration
Assess cost-effectiveness, regulatory pathways and long-term sustainability to support real-world adoption of COMPASS solutions in healthcare systems.
What makes the difference?
Why it’s needed?
Cardiotoxicity is a growing and often under-detected consequence of modern cancer therapies, with long-term implications for patient survival, quality of life and healthcare systems. COMPASS responds to this challenge by addressing fragmentation between oncology and cardiology, limited early diagnostic tools, and the lack of personalised risk assessment.
Scientific impact
Generation of novel biomarkers, large-scale datasets and validated AI models to advance cardio-oncology research.
Economic impact
Improved efficiency, reduced needless interventions and development of evidence-based cost-effective care pathways.
Societal impact
Better quality of life for cancer patients and survivors through earlier detection, personalised care and improved long-term cardiovascular outcomes.
Key concepts
What is cardiotoxicity?
Cardiotoxicity is defined as the cardiovascular damage caused by cancer therapies. It might appear during treatment or years later following treatment.
Why early detection matters?
Early identification of cardiac changes allows clinicians to adapt treatment strategies, prevent irreversible damage and avoid interruptions to effective cancer therapies.
How does AI support cardio-oncology care?
AI enables the application of complex, multimodal health data to improve risk prediction, monitoring and clinical decision-making.
Who benefits from COMPASS?
Cancer patients and survivors, healthcare professionals, healthcare systems, researchers and policymakers across Europe.
How can patients participate?
COMPASS includes several clinical studies across different European countries, involving cancer patients and survivors at various stages of care. Participation is always voluntary and based on informed consent, with patient safety and privacy as top priorities.
How is the project funded?
COMPASS is funded by the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), a European public–private partnership supported by the European Union and industry partners. IHI aims to accelerate health research and innovation by bringing together academia, healthcare providers, industry and patients to address major public health challenges.
