Oncology news

A special issue of Klinicka onkologie (the official journal of the Czech Society for Oncology), published in December 2014, is dedicated to the assessment of cancer prevention efforts and results in the Czech Republic. A team of authors not only described the current situation in cancer prevention programmes in the Czech Republic, but also pointed out weak spots in cancer prevention efforts.

In the EU28 in 2011, cancer was the cause of death [1] for 1.281 million persons, responsible for more than a quarter of all deaths (26.3%). Over the past ten years, while the total number of deaths slightly decreased (-0.5%), the number of deaths due to cancer increased by 6.3% (from 1.206 million in 2002 to 1.281 million in 2011), at a slightly higher pace for females (+6.6%) than for males (+6.0%). However, the number of deaths due to cancer remained higher in 2011 among the male population (718,000 deaths due to cancer) than among the female population (563,000). In 2011, cancer represented 37.1% of all causes of death for the EU28 population aged less than 65, while this level was only 23.8% for the older population (those aged 65 years and over).

Pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths around the world. Yet the public awareness of this aggressive malignant tumour is extremely low. Declaration of a day dedicated to pancreatic cancer is aimed not only at raising awareness of this disease, but also at pancreatic cancer being pushed through among cancer research priorities. Therefore, for the first time ever, 13 November marks the World Pancreatic Cancer Day.