Česky
The cancer mortality rate in the Pardubice Region between 1994 and 2015 was the second lowest in the country, while the incidence of neoplasms in the region is "only" among the better average. From this, one could conclude with some caution that doctors in Pardubice are succeeding in curing cancer. The number of cancer cases is increasing, as more and more tumours are being caught earlier and earlier thanks to advances in medicine.
"In general, thanks to screening, the number of breast cancer patients and prostate cancer patients is increasing. Fortunately, thanks to quality treatment, the scissors between the number of newly reported patients and the mortality rate are being opened," said Vít Ulrych, a doctor at the Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Pardubice.
Do you have an overview of the increase in the number of patients in oncology? Statistical data on the development of oncology treatment from the Institute of Cancer Care are two years old.
In the Czech Republic, we have a sophisticated data collection system in the form of the National Cancer Registry, which is the envy of many European countries. At a recent seminar in Pardubice, the director of the IHIS, Ladislav Dušek, presented a project from which everyone can obtain interesting data not only on the frequency of cancer in individual regions. This data shows, for example, that if you are born in the Pardubice Region, you have a greater chance of being cured than in some other regions. But statistics are tricky things.
What's new in treatment?
In the last decade there has been a big boom in new drugs for targeted, more inaccurately called biological treatments, especially for breast cancer, colorectal cancer, kidney cancer and malignant melanoma. In addition, in recent years, a renaissance of immunotherapy in the treatment of solid tumors has driven oncology. As far as diagnostics in the Pardubice Region is concerned, the Multiscan Cancer Centre has the most advanced 3T MRI available. Among the new diagnostic tests, PET/CT is now available in almost all regions of the Czech Republic - unfortunately not yet in the Pardubice Region.
In your opinion, what new developments in diagnostics and treatment can be expected in the next two years?
Perhaps we are at a historic moment and a new era of treatment in oncology is beginning. We know that immunotherapy works for malignant melanoma and there is a good chance that we will be able to use a similar system for other diagnoses. In radiotherapy, it will certainly be about further improving the accuracy of radiation and reducing radiation exposure to healthy tissues close to the tumour, and this is something we are pursuing at our department, where we have already implemented the respiratory gating technique as standard for left-sided breast cancer on the state-of-the-art Varian TrueBeam irradiator. Otherwise, I foresee further expansion of the spectrum of targeted treatment for individual diagnoses and possibly a combination of them. Hopefully, we will soon see the above mentioned PET/CT in our region.
The number of cancer patients continues to grow, with only minimal increases in funding. Do all those who need the most modern and effective treatment have access to it?
Fortunately, in recent years, there has been an increase in the money that flows into public health insurance, not only due to the increase in state payments for children, pensioners and the unemployed, but also due to high employment and salary increases. This is why it has been possible to expand the range of expensive cancer drugs. We as oncologists would, of course, like to see even more of them and for a wider range of indications.
