Abstract
In January 2014, personalised invitation of citizens for cancer screening programmes was launched in the Czech Republic. The objective of this article is to describe the invitation system and first results of the project.
Invitations are sent to citizens by health insurance companies, and the project is coordinated by the Czech Ministry of Health in cooperation with representatives of involved expert societies (gynaecology, gastroenterology, gastrointestinal oncology, diagnostic radiology, and general practice), health insurance companies and other experts. Invitations are aimed at individuals who do not participate in cancer screening programmes in the long term.
From January to September 2014, more than 1.6 million persons insured were invited to participate in screening examinations; most invitations were sent for colorectal cancer screening. Among citizens invited during the first three months of personalised invitations, 8.2% of them participated in cervical cancer screening, 12.6% in breast cancer screening, and 14.2% in colorectal cancer screening in the period from January to June 2014.
The first results confirm the functionality of the introduced system the potential to increase the coverage by screening in the coming years.