Oncology news

The workshop “Cancer Screening Programmes in the Czech Republic and Importance of Personalised Invitation”, held on 5 December 2013 in the Clarion Congress Hotel Prague, was organised by the Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses at the Masaryk University in cooperation with the WHO Office in the Czech Republic, the Kolorektum.cz Initiative, and the Office of Member of the European Parliament Dr. Pavel Poc. The workshop was held under the auspices of Martin Holcát, MD, MBA (Czech Minister of Health), Alena Šteflová, PhD, MPH (Director of the WHO Office in the Czech Republic), and Dr. Pavel Poc (Member of the European Parliament).

Screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) in European countries is highly effective in reducing mortality from the disease. Some of the resources currently being devoted to breast and prostate screening programmes, where the evidence of effectiveness is much less clear-cut, should be reallocated to the early detection of CRC.

Testing women for the human papillomavirus (HPV) first, instead of using the traditional cervical screening test to detect abnormal cells in the cervix, could prevent around 600 cases of cervical cancer a year in England.

While European countries have made substantial progress in implementing some tobacco control measures – such as advertising bans and prioritising smoke-free policies – the third Series paper shows that European tobacco control nonetheless falls short in a number of areas, and implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) remains patchy, at best, in most European countries.

Do you know how to fight or avoid colorectal cancer? Are you a patient, doctor, policy-maker or neither but want to know more?

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is still the most common newly diagnosed cancer and the second most common cause of cancer deaths in Europe. More than 200,000 Europeans die every year from malignant tumours of the colon and rectum. However, many of these deaths can be avoided. Effective and safe colorectal cancer prevention and early detection are the key factors which can reduce both incidence and mortality of the disease.

A study that compared the benefits and harms of the frequency of screening mammography to age, breast density and postmenopausal use of hormone therapy (HT) suggests that woman aged 50 to 74 years who undergo biennial screenings have a similar risk of advanced-stage disease and a lower cumulative risk of false-positive results than those who get mammograms annually, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Completion rates for the human papillomavirus vaccine series across both genders continue to remain alarmingly low nearly seven years after its introduction, suggesting that better patient education and increased public vaccine financing programs are needed, according to new research from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

Combating the tobacco industry’s tactics in the world’s poorest countries as well as ensuring the best cancer vaccines are available to those most in need are key in order to reduce the number of cancer deaths worldwide, according to a new report published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, today (Wednesday).

Despite the decline in cancer death rates in the U.S., there is an increase in incidence rates for cancers associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and more efforts are needed to increase HPV vaccination coverage levels to prevent the occurrence of these cancers in the future according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.