It was a happy coincidence: the final text of the Recommendations of the Multidisciplinary and Multiprofessional Working Group on the Clinical Use of Psychedelic Substances was released on the same day that the Portuguese National Health System announced its decision to fully reimburse the treatment of resistant depression with a substance called esketamine.

Analysing these scans can also be time-consuming and complex, as doctors need to pore over countless images, looking for often tiny details.

So, any new imaging analysis technique that is faster and more precise is always welcome: a new paper (recently published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine) reveals that the Champalimaud Foundation’s Nuclear Medicine-Radiopharmacology Unit has managed just that by using Deep Learning (DL) Artificial Intelligence (AI).

At the Champalimaud Colorectal Cancer Conference, last February, Gina Brown, from the Imperial College London, questioned the validity of the current staging strategy for colon cancer. Indeed, research shows that lymph nodes are not the main culprit in colon cancer spread, and can actually be a sign that the patient’s immune system is fighting back. 

Coordinated by Professor Ana Santos Almeida, principal investigator of a translational laboratory at the GIMM Foundation - Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (GIMM-CARE), this study will take place at the Champalimaud Foundation, in collaboration with Dr. José Azevedo, surgeon of the Colorectal Cancer Group of the Digestive Unit of the Champalimaud Clinical Center, and at the Hospital de Santa Maria, with the participation of oncologists Professor Luís Costa and Dr. André Mansinho.

The Champalimaud Foundation has always been at the intersection of cutting-edge science, and exceptional care. 

Specialising in cutting-edge cancer treatment, neuropsychiatry, and experimental clinical research, the Champalimaud Clinical Centre is committed to advancing personalised medicine through groundbreaking research, merging advanced technology with human-centred care.

Watch the video to see how the Champalimaud Foundation has been transforming healthcare and improving lives for the past 20 years—and how we’ll continue to do so in the future.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and it brings with it significant emotional, social, economic, and public health challenges.
Prevention is a crucial tool in the fight against cancer. By identifying risks early, it not only saves lives and reduces suffering but also helps conserve valuable healthcare resources, both human and financial.

The patient has multiple myeloma, one of the most common haematological (blood) cancers worldwide.

In patients under the age of 70, the first-line treatment for this cancer includes harvesting the patient's own cells, known as “haematopoietic progenitor cells”, intensive chemotherapy and, finally, reinfusion of the previously harvested cells. These haematopoietic progenitor cells are capable of giving rise to all types of blood cells normally produced by the bone marrow.

“Surgery can cure”, said Markus Büchler, director of the newly opened Botton-Champalimaud Pancreatic Cancer Centre, in Lisbon, during his talk. Büchler was referring to a form of pancreatic cancer surgery called the “triangle operation”, which he invented and developed.

The Champalimaud Foundation's Breast Cancer Research Programme is made up of groups dedicated to all aspects related to the disease, from diagnosis to treatment. The goal is to improve the quality of life and survival of patients by utilising cutting-edge technologies that combine new techniques and methods with clinical practice to better serve patients.

Natural ageing is one of the main risk factors for cancer. As we become older, the probability of developing cancer increases. This happens, on the one hand, because the probability of acquiring cancer-causing mutations grows as we live longer; and on the other, because our DNA repair mechanisms decline with age.