Recommendation 2003/878 - Cancer screening - Main contents

official title

 

Legal instrument	Recommendation
Number legal act	Recommendation 2003/878
Original proposal	COM(2003)230
CELEX number i	32003H0878

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Council Recommendation of 2 December 2003 on cancer screening

Official Journal L 327 , 16/12/2003 P. 0034 - 0038

Council Recommendation

of 2 December 2003

on cancer screening

(2003/878/EC)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 152(4), second subparagraph, thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament,

Whereas:

• (1) 

  Article 152 of the Treaty provides that Community action is to complement national policies and be directed towards improving public health, preventing human illness and diseases, and obviating sources of danger to human health. Such action shall cover the fight against the major health scourges, by promoting research into their causes, their transmission and their prevention, as well as health information and education. Community action in the field of public health shall fully respect the responsibilities of the Member States for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care.

• (2) 

  Further development of cancer screening programmes should be implemented in accordance with national law and national and regional responsibilities for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care.

• (3) 

  Cancer is a major disease and cause of death throughout Europe, including the future Member States. An estimated number of 1580096 new cancer cases, excluding non-melanoma skin cancer, occurred in the European Union in 1998. Of these, 1,4 % were cervical cancers, 13 % breast cancers, 14 % colorectal cancers and 9 % prostate cancers. Cervical and breast cancer constituted 3 % and 29 %, respectively, of new cancers in women. Prostate cancer constituted 17 % of new cancers in men.

• (4) 

  Principles for screening as a tool for the prevention of chronic non-communicable diseases were published by the World Health Organisation in 1968 and by the Council of Europe in 1994. These two documents form, together with the current best practice in each of the cancer screening fields, the basis for the present recommendations.

• (5) 

  Additionally, these recommendations are based on the "Recommendations on cancer screening" of the Advisory Committee on Cancer Prevention together with the experience gathered under the different actions sustained under the Europe against Cancer programme where European collaboration has helped, for example, high quality cancer screening programmes to provide efficient European guidelines of best practice and to protect the population from poor quality screening.

• (6) 

  Important factors which have to be assessed before a population-wide implementation is decided upon include, inter alia, the frequency and interval of the application of the screening test as well as other national or regional epidemiological specificities.

• (7) 

  Screening allows detection of cancers at an early stage of invasiveness or possibly even before they become invasive. Some lesions can then be treated more effectively and the patients can expect to be cured. The main indicator for the effectiveness of screening is a decrease in disease-specific mortality. As in the case of cervical cancer, cancer precursors are detected, a reduction in cervical cancer incidence can be considered a very helpful indicator.

• (8) 

  Evidence exists concerning the efficacy of screening for breast cancer and colorectal cancer, derived from randomised trials, and for cervical cancer, derived from observational studies.

• (9) 

  Screening is, however, the testing for diseases of people for which no symptoms have been detected. In addition to its beneficial effect on the disease-specific mortality, screening can also have negative side effects for the screened population. Healthcare providers should be...

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