As the EU Cancer Mission marks five years of bringing research, innovation and policy together to improve the lives of people affected by cancer, SYNTHIA is contributing to this wider European ambition by exploring how synthetic data can help overcome some of the data challenges that continue to limit cancer research and innovation.
Through four cancer-focused use cases, lung cancer, breast cancer, multiple myeloma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), SYNTHIA is investigating how high-quality, privacy-preserving synthetic data can support better detection, treatment response prediction, personalized medicine and more innovative approaches to clinical research.
A shared ambition: turning research and innovation into better cancer care
Cancer remains one of Europe’s greatest health challenges. Each year, around 2.7 million people in Europe are diagnosed with cancer and 1.3 million lives are lost to the disease. The EU Cancer Mission was established to help address this challenge by bringing together research, innovation, policy, citizens and stakeholders around a common goal: improving the lives of more than three million people by 2030 through prevention and cure, and helping those affected by cancer and their families to live longer and better.
Its work is centred around four objectives: understanding cancer; prevention and early detection; diagnosis and treatment; and improving quality of life. Innovation, personalized medicine, equitable access and citizen and stakeholder engagement cut across these ambitions.
Data plays an important role in making progress possible. Large, diverse and high-quality datasets can help researchers better understand disease, develop and validate AI models, improve diagnosis and treatment, and design more effective clinical trials. Yet access to health data remains constrained by privacy considerations, data scarcity, fragmentation and interoperability challenges.
SYNTHIA is exploring how synthetic data can become part of the solution.
Four cancer use cases, one goal
Across its four cancer use cases, SYNTHIA is applying synthetic data to different clinical and research challenges, from medical imaging and early detection to outcome prediction and clinical trials.
Improving detection, monitoring and outcome prediction SYNTHIA is exploring synthetic imaging and clinical data to improve the detection of lung cancer, predict tumour aggressiveness and treatment response, and strengthen models for survival, relapse and disease progression. The work also investigates synthetic imaging approaches and the potential of synthetic external control arms for clinical trials.
Supporting detection and more personalised treatment. The breast cancer use case is developing synthetic imaging and multimodal data approaches to improve cancer detection and characterisation and support models that predict treatment response and relapse. It also explores how synthetic data could strengthen external control arms in clinical trials and contribute to more personalised treatment decisions.
Improving outcome prediction and clinical research. In multiple myeloma, SYNTHIA is investigating how synthetic data can bring together genomic, clinical, demographic, therapeutic and imaging information to improve long-term outcome prediction. The use case also explores synthetic external control arms and their potential to support clinical research and future regulatory and health technology assessment decision-making.
Using synthetic data to better predict treatment response. For diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, SYNTHIA is investigating synthetic data for prognostic models based on Minimal Residual Disease (MRD), an important indicator of survival and treatment response. The work also explores expanding patient cohorts, improving lesion identification and strengthening external control arms for trials of new therapies.
Connecting data, imaging and AI
The connection between data and cancer innovation will also be part of the discussions as the EU Cancer Mission celebrates its five-year milestone at “Stronger Through Connection”, taking place from 29 September to 1 October 2026 in Brussels.
Prof. Luis Martí-Bonmatí, Director of the Clinical Area of the Medical Imaging Department at La Fe Polytechnic and University Hospital, will contribute to the event as a speaker, and will include SYNTHIA in his presentations. He will speak in the session “Understanding cancer and importance of data exchange – Part 1: Building a coherent cancer data ecosystem” and contribute to the workshop “Cancer imaging data and AI.” Both discussions are closely connected to the questions SYNTHIA is addressing: how can we make better use of health data, medical imaging and AI while ensuring that innovation develops in a responsible, trustworthy and clinically meaningful way?
“Personalized cancer care depends on our ability to understand the individual characteristics of each patient and each tumour. Medical imaging, combined with clinical, molecular and other health data, can provide a much more complete picture of the disease and help us develop AI tools that support earlier diagnosis, treatment selection and response prediction. However, progress is often constrained by limited access to sufficiently large, diverse and representative datasets. High-quality synthetic data could help us address some of these limitations by responsibly expanding the evidence available for research, AI development and clinical validation, while better protecting patient privacy. But synthetic data must be scientifically robust, clinically meaningful and rigorously evaluated. Through SYNTHIA, we are building the evidence needed to understand where these data can add real value and how they can contribute to trustworthy innovation and more personalized cancer care.”
- Prof. Luis Martí-Bonmatí, Director of the Clinical Area of the Medical Imaging Department, La Fe Polytechnic and University Hospital, Valencia, Spain
IISLaFe (La Fe Health Research Institute) is the Coordinator of the SYNTHIA project. Based at Hospital Universitari i Politècnic La Fe in Valencia, Spain, IISLaFe brings together biomedical research and clinical expertise to foster innovation and translate research into improved healthcare.
As Europe looks ahead to the next phase of the EU Cancer Mission, SYNTHIA will continue contributing to this shared effort by generating evidence on where and how synthetic data can add value, helping connect data, AI and clinical research in the pursuit of better outcomes for people affected by cancer.
SYNTHIA’s work is still developing, however we are already bringing together important perspectives on the responsible generation, evaluation and use of synthetic health data. Visit our SYNTHIA Insights > and Impact pages > to learn more about the SYNTHIA activities, emerging results and contributions to the wider European health data and AI landscape.
