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What we do at MULTIR:
a note for patients
WHAT IS MULTIR?
MULTIR is a European research project involving 17 institutions across 10 countries and funded by the European Union. Its goal is to help doctors predict which treatment will work best for each individual patient.
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MULTIR focuses on three cancers: skin/melanoma, lung, and bladder. These three cancers can all be treated with immunotherapy, and in all three cases, predicting who will respond remains a big challenge.
WHY IS CANCER TREATMENT STILL SO UNPREDICTABLE?
Every person is different, and every cancer is different. Even when two patients have the same type of cancer, their bodies respond to treatment in completely different ways.
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This is because cancer doesn’t act alone, but constantly interacts with the rest of the body: with the immune system, with hormones, with lifestyle factors like age and genetics, etc. Scientists call this the tumour-host interaction: the ongoing conversation between the cancer and the person carrying it.
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Understanding that relationship is the key to predicting who will respond to which treatment.
That’s where MULTIR comes in.
HOW DO WE PROCEED?
Think of it like building a very detailed portrait of each patient.
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MULTIR researchers collect information from many different angles at once: not just the tumour itself, but also the patient’s immune system, their blood, their genetics, their lifestyle, their environment, and their medical history. This gives a much richer picture than any single test could provide.
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By using artificial intelligence, we are able to analyse thousands of these portraits together, looking for patterns that scientists alone couldn’t identify. Doing so, the AI learns to predict risks, and can help doctors in their decision regarding which treatment is the most likely to provide a good response.
WHAT ABOUT PRIVACY?
This is one of the main concerns for patients, and it is completely valid.
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MULTIR takes data privacy extremely seriously. Patient data is anonymised and encrypted before it is ever shared between research teams. By doing so, the AI is trained without any identifiable patient information.
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The project follows strict European data protection rules (GDPR), and independent ethics experts are involved at every stage.
WHAT’S THE END GOAL?
The goal is to turn these insights into practical tools: like AI-based applications, that doctors can use in real clinical settings to guide treatment decisions for each individual patient. The AI would be like an assistant and is not meant to prevail on the doctors’ opinion, or decisions made with their patients.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR PATIENTS?
Thanks to MULTIR, doctors would be able to look at a patient’s full profile: their tumour, their immune system, their background, etc. and make a much more informed prediction about which treatment is most likely to work, and which side effects to watch for.
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For patients, that could mean starting the right treatment sooner, avoiding treatments that wouldn’t help, and spending less time in uncertainty.
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And for the healthcare system, it would also mean more strategic use of expensive therapies, reducing waste and, crucially, reducing unnecessary suffering.
HOW ARE PATIENTS INVOLVED IN MULTIR?
Patients and patient advocates/associations are not just the beneficiaries of this research: they are active participants in it.
During the first two years of the project, patients and patient advocates from over 16 organizations in 10 countries have contributed to develop recommendations for the integration of AI in cancer care, in close collaboration with the research team of the MULTIR’s work package on Stakeholder Engagement. These recommendations will be presented in different public forums and webinars. Patient advocates have also contributed to discussions at MULTIR meetings and the 2025 MULTIR Hybrid Symposium “Advancing Oncology with AI: Innovative Tools, Better Outcomes”.
Adult patients living with bladder cancer, lung cancer, or skin cancer/melanoma, as well as their caregivers, are invited to take part in a MULTIR survey and share their views on the use of AI in cancer care. This short, confidential survey takes just 8-10 minutes and will help shape future patient-centred innovations: Patient Survey | Multir
Finally, the Patient University of Sorbonne University (France) will be developing practical recommendations and educational tools in collaboration with a cancer patient advisory group recruited for this specific goal. Communication and information materials will mainly consist in texts, infographics, visual tools, etc. aimed at patients and the general public. As per educational tools, a Masterclass in therapeutic patient education focused on AI in cancer care and aimed at cancer patients is to be co-designed, along with guidelines for the integration of predictive models into patient education and shared decision making.
If you represent a patient organization, or if you are a patient who would like to share your perspective, we would love to hear from you: your voice matters.
