Oncology news

A total of 81,541 people were diagnosed with cancer, and there were 26,944 cancer deaths in the Czech Republic in 2013. The prevalence of cancer patients reached 518,667 as on 31 December 2013, Czech Minister of Health Svatopluk Nemecek said today. There is space for further improvement in cancer care, such as the availability of cancer care in specialised centres, which varies among regions.

After many years of bad news, it seems that the Czech Republic is beginning to reap the benefits of the challenging fight against cancer. A programme of nationwide personalised invitations to cancer screening programmes has been launched, incidence trends of most cancer types – including the most common ones – have stabilised, and long-term survival rates of cancer patients have increased. Despite these encouraging facts, the Czech cancer care still faces challenges to be addressed, which might influence the lives of tens of thousands of current and future cancer patients.