Standards & Accreditation - Quality Cancer Care
Standards help systems for cancer care delivery deliver to higher levels and can help to enshrine good governance, safety and quality.
The European Cancer Organisation's Quality Cancer Care Network therefore encourages familiarisation and adoption by health systems, cancer centres and practitioners of the range of leading standards produced by professional and scientific societies.
To quality assure that standards are indeed being applied, a range of independent and internationally available accreditation systems are also in place, and are recommended to adopted where possible.
The algorithms for the complete management of endometrial cancer, based on the outcomes of the ESMO-ESGO-ESTRO consensus conference, can be viewed on the ESGO Gynae-Cancers Algorithms App.
The Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) initiated a certification program to recognise oncology centers that demonstrate best practices in supportive cancer care. Such Centers are designated by MASCC as Centers of Excellence in Supportive Care in Cancer. Through this initiative, MASCC promotes and recognizes cancer care centers around the world that are successfully integrating oncology and supportive services. Such centers are recognized by MASCC for upholding high standards and providing comprehensive services in supportive cancer care. MASCC’s certification program aims both to educate and to encourage a supportive care focus among oncology healthcare professionals.
The European Society for Radiology and Oncology produce a range of regularly updated clinical and technical guidelines in the field of Radiation Oncology. Often such guidelines are also produced in cooperation with international organisations such as ASTRO and UICC giving the guidelines global impact.
The European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO), the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO), and the European Society of Pathology (ESP) jointly developed clinically relevant and evidence-based guidelines covering comprehensively cervical cancer staging, management and follow-up for patients with cervical.
The guidelines developed by the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO) cover diagnosis, preoperative investigations, surgical management (local, treatment, reconstructive surgery), sentinel lymph node procedure, radiation therapy, chemoradiation, systemic treatment, treatment of recurrent disease (vulvar recurrence, groin recurrence, distant metastases), and follow-up.
The European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO), in cooperation with the European Society for Paediatric Oncology (SIOPe), has released the recommendations for the treatment of adolescents and young adults with non-epithelial ovarian tumours, which have been published in July 2020 in The Lancet Oncology.
The Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI) publishes a consensus of 100 core quality standards which should become standard in European cancer centres to achieve high quality care, research and education.
The 100 Quality Standards form the basis of the OECI designation and accreditation programme.
The European Society of Breast Cancer Specialists (EUSOMA) aims to Improve and harmonize the level of patient care throughout Europe by identifying the most suitable diagnostic and treatment procedures and promoting their use, making available for all women in Europe a high quality specialist breast service, defining the standards for such a service and contributing to the process of certification and audit of Breast Centres.
The requirements of a specialist breast centre form the basis of the EUSOMA Breast Centre Certification scheme.
