Specialists: Czech cancer treatment ranks in middle of list ranking 20 countries incl. US

According to Czech cancer specialists, the Czech Republic ranks in about the middle of a list of 20 European countries, together with the USA, for successful cancer treatment and not at its bottom as was recently reported by one survey. The Czech Oncological Society made the statement on Friday, reacting to the recently published Eurocare-4 study, which ranked the Czech Republic among the worst states on the list for cancer treatment. The head of the Czech Onolcogical society, Jiri Vorlicek, told CTK, the Czech news agency, that this was because Czech authorities had provided only partial data for the European study. The health ministry has promised oncologists such a mistake will not be repeated. Mr Vorlicek said that the oncologists' data is based on the national oncological register comprising the whole population. He added that cancer patients and their families were terrified to hear news about small chances of treatment, before they were told those were are at least the same or even better than in some countries.

Author: Jan Velinger