Timeliness Is the First Treatment
Over the past decades, mounting evidence from scientific research and clinical practice has underscored the critical role of early detection in improving outcomes for certain types of cancer. When identified at an early stage, these cancers are more likely to respond to treatment, resulting in first and foremost more surviving patients, in addition to a significant reduction in both the societal and economic burden of the disease.
Yet translating this potential into practice requires more than medical insight alone. Effective early detection, diagnosis and treatment strategies demand coordinated policy action, sustained investment and thoughtful organizational reform within health systems.
A recent study by a research team from CERGAS (Marianna Cavazza, Natalia Oprea and Amelia Compagni), supported by an unconditional grant from Brunswick Brussels, sheds light on how five countries — Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland and Chile — are addressing this challenge. The analysis highlights the diverse policy and organizational solutions these countries have implemented to support timely detection, diagnosis and treatment for cancers where early intervention proves most impactful.
The most effective interventions to support early detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer are those grounded in strategies that ensure comprehensiveness, continuity and timeliness.
Comprehensiveness means engaging all relevant stakeholders — from NGOs and patient associations working on health literacy campaigns to local and national public authorities and healthcare professionals. This is best achieved through cross-sectoral coordinating bodies that foster collaboration across organizations.
Continuity refers to striking the right balance between centralization and decentralization, while promoting integration among the actors involved. This includes the use of a wide range of tools, from clinical practice guidelines to the development of comprehensive cancer care networks.
Timeliness involves designing patient-centered logistics systems and strengthening quality assurance mechanisms to ensure that care is not only accessible but also delivered promptly and effectively.
Promising evidence was collected on the implementation of strategies aimed at ensuring timeliness and continuity, particularly through care pathways and structured referral processes that link primary care at the community level with secondary care in highly specialized oncology hospitals in Denmark and the Netherlands. Likewise, the development of comprehensive cancer care networks in both the Netherlands and Italy offers encouraging examples of how cancer care systems can be made more integrated and complete. Finally, although following different approaches, both Denmark and the Netherlands have pursued strategies to promote comprehensiveness in cancer-related health literacy. They have done so through cross-sectoral coordinating bodies and investments in patient-informed, patient-shared decision-making models aimed at better understanding and involving patients and their families in deciding their care.
Finally, World Health Organization guidelines and the EU’s Europe Beating Cancer Plan emphasize the importance of models that ensure timeliness and continuity in early detection and diagnosis of cancer. The analysis however revealed that a fully developed conceptualization of an integrated pathway — from cancer health literacy to early treatment — seems to still be lacking.
Even in countries like Denmark and the Netherlands, which have made significant investments in this area, a comprehensive vision of an "early cancer care" continuum has yet to be fully realized. This observation highlights the substantial effort and investment required to promote and implement a truly integrated pathway that extends beyond diagnosis and treatment to also encompass the earlier phases typically associated with public health and prevention programs.
