Here & Now is a pan-European advanced breast cancer (ABC) awareness initiative, supported by a number of leading experts. Through a series of creative and thought-provoking activities, Here & Now aims to raise awareness of ABC and the realities of living with the disease, in order to improve the level of care and support available. Here & Now is a disease awareness initiative from Novartis Oncology.

As recognised in international guidelines, the level of care and support available for early breast cancer (EBC) is not available to patients with ABC.^1,2 There is also a growing body of evidence that shows there is a high degree of unmet social and psychological need in ABC.³

The Here & Now campaign uncovers new insights into the impact of ABC, to better understand how barriers to optimal patient care can be overcome in order to improve the level of care and support across Europe.

1. Cardoso F, et al. 1st international consensus guidelines for advanced breast cancer (ABC1), The Breast 2012, doi: 10.1016/j.breast.2012.03.003
2. Cardoso F. Metastatic breast cancer patients: the forgotten heroes! The Breast 2009; 18:271-2 (Editorial)
3. Parle, M, Gallagher, J, Gray, C, Akers, G, Liebert, B. From evidence to practice, factors affecting the specialist breast care nurse’s detection of psychosocial morbidity in women with breast cancer. Psycho-oncology 2001; 10: 503-510

The Here & Now campaign's research to date has exposed that patients with ABC often feel isolated from society¹, highlighting a unique set of challenges these patients face.

The 'New language of ABC' meeting was designed to provide an opportunity to identify where communication with loved ones can break down and, importantly, how we can address and better support these communication needs or gaps.

The meeting brought together women with ABC and ABC support groups from across Europe and linguistics expert Elena Semino, in order to gather expertise and experience to inform the development of a communications guidance tool.

To read more about the meeting and to download the guidance tool, please click here.

1. Here & Now Report. Available at: http://www.wearehereandnow.com/files/here-and-now-report.pdf [Last accessed September 2017]

Previous research has found that around 40% of ABC patients suffer depression and emotional stress. Here & Now enlisted the help of Greg Burdulis, a mindfulness coach, to develop a mindfulness resource to support women living with ABC both emotionally and psychologically. Greg Burdulis spent seven years practicing mindfulness intensively in Burma and has been teaching mindfulness internationally since 2008.

This resource touches on areas such as motivational messages and provides tips on resilience and the management of stress.

To access the mindfulness guide, please click here.

Research has shown that there is a disconnect in conversations between patient and healthcare professionals’ (HCP). This disconnect could have an impact on a patient’s experience with ABC. The Here & Now HCP survey identified that clinicians and nurses felt that between 41–60% of ABC patients do not fully understand the implication of their ABC diagnosis highlighting a need to improve dialogue between patients and their clinicians.

To support this need, the Here & Now campaign created a comprehensive communications training resource for HCPs to support their conversations with patients on a range of topics including diagnosis, prognosis and psychosocial care – to read more and to download the materials please click here.

In March 2016 the Here & Now team took the campaign’s call to action to the 10th annual European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC) 8-10 March, Amsterdam. The conference stand was designed to continue to raise awareness of advanced breast cancer (ABC) within the clinical and patient advocacy community and also to gather wider insight into the issues facing these women across Europe.

To read more, please click here.

The European ‘Voices of Strength’ creative exhibition launched at the 2015 Advanced Breast Cancer Third (ABC3) International Consensus Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

The Voices of Strength photography exhibition featured the inspirational and empowering words of women living with ABC from three European countries: Greece, Portugal and Cyprus. The unique collection of photographs shed positive light on the realities of ABC, in order to raise awareness amongst both the breast cancer community and the general public.

To read more, please click here.