Prof. MUDr. Marek Svoboda, Ph.D., Czech oncologist and Director of the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute in Brno. He is involved in scientific research activities at home and abroad and in 2022, he in the Manager of the Year competition.
Neglecting preventive care increases healthcare costs. Even so, our citizens are not very keen on participating in prevention programmes. How can we improve this?
I agree with you. Personally, I am a big supporter of prevention programmes. Prevention clearly prolongs a healthy life and prevents premature deaths. In oncology, it can certainly lead to a reduction in costs, as many people might not get ancer at all, and the number of patients with advanced and metastatic disease would also fall. Primary prevention is the most effective; unfortunately, these programmes are somewhat neglected in the Czech Republic today, with perhaps one exception, namely the HPV vaccination. However, even here, there is still room for improvement. Secondary prevention programmes, such as screening for breast, colon, and cervical cancer and, more recently, lung cancer, are also highly effective in reducing cancer mortality. They can reduce mortality by 30 to 50%! Unfortunately, the participation of citizens is not very high, approximately 35 to 60% of those for whom they are intended. Even more education or targeted invitations simply do not convince many Czechs. We need to look for other tools. Health insurance companies have such tools at their disposal, for example, in the form of bonuses or extra payments. I think starting with bonuses for adherence to preventive programmes that already exist in the Czech Republic may be the first step.
What prevention programmes do you offer?
We are involved in all four types of prevention. As part of primary prevention, we run a healthy lifestyle counselling centre and a smoking cessation counselling centre. We also have a workplace that has long been dedicated to the heredity of cancer, as approximately 10% of cancers are caused by a genetic predisposition in the form of damage to a specific gene. We can detect this and provide the patient and his family with suitable preventive measures. Regarding secondary prevention, we are screening for breast cancer and colorectal cancer and a pilot project for the early detection of lung cancer. We also have a clinical trial for a screening programme for people at high risk of pancreatic cancer. Similarly, we also offer preventive monitoring to people who have inherited a genetic disposition to various cancers. Last but not least, we are known for our “Cancer Prevention for Everyone” programme.
Medicine is not only treatment, but also science and research in areas such as artificial intelligence and information technology. How is your institute involved in these projects, and with what results?
We see artificial intelligence as an important helper in oncology. It can help us speed up and refine information about tumour and how to most appropriately treat them. For example, in clinical trials, where we perform CT scans after 6–8 weeks, we have to describe the changes in a tumour to detect every new finding. This involves a comparison of undreds or even thousands of images from two scans. This is where artificial intelligence helps us today. Also, in pathology, finding and counting dividing cells for the rapid detection of a tumour site. In the future, artificial intelligence will help evaluate pre-cancerous conditions and rare tumours, in the personalisation of treatment, including modelling its efficacy and toxicity. We and other partners have established an AI platform in oncology. We are co-developing a research project to apply for funding for cutting-edge research.
Thank you for the interview.
