Jihlava Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Centre – KOC

The Oncology Department of Jihlava Hospital is one of 15 oncology centres in the Czech Republic holding the status of a Comprehensive Cancer Centre. It successfully defended this status in 2025.

Comprehensive Cancer Centres (KOC) are defined within the National Oncology Programme of the Czech Society for Oncology of the Czech Medical Association of J. E. Purkyně (ČSL JEP). A KOC must meet specified staffing, material, technical and organisational criteria and is regularly audited by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. KOCs form the backbone network of cancer care in the Czech Republic and provide specialised and highly specialised oncological care.

The KOC of Jihlava Hospital works closely with other oncology departments in the Vysočina Region. In 2016, together with the hospitals in Havlíčkův Brod, Pelhřimov, Třebíč and Nové Město na Moravě and the outpatient centre in Třebíč, it formed the Vysočina Regional Oncology Group.

The Oncology Department is accredited by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic to provide full postgraduate training in both radiation oncology and clinical oncology, without trainees needing to spend time at other centres.

Together with other specialised departments of Jihlava Hospital, the KOC of Jihlava Hospital provides comprehensive cancer care (i.e. tumour diagnosis, surgical, cytostatic, biological and hormonal treatment, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, supportive and palliative treatment and follow-up care) for adult patients with practically all types of solid malignant tumours. It also treats some haematological malignancies (Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphomas). Treatment is provided on both an outpatient and an inpatient basis.

The KOC employs 17 doctors with specialist qualification in clinical and/or radiation oncology; several doctors are preparing for their specialist board examinations.

In treatment we follow standards that are in line with national and international guidelines and standards. Decisions on patients' treatment are made by multidisciplinary teams that meet regularly once a week with the relevant specialists according to the type of tumour and treatment being discussed. For 20 years now, we have been authorised to administer highly specialised and costly biological therapy and immunotherapy for a number of tumours. The number of drugs and their uses are constantly expanding. Outpatient chemotherapy and immunotherapy are administered in the chemotherapy day unit, equipped with 15 treatment chairs and infusion technology.

Radiotherapy is provided in the radiotherapy unit, equipped primarily with 2 Varian Truebeam linear accelerators with state-of-the-art equipment, enabling irradiation using highly sophisticated techniques such as IMRT, IGRT, VMAT, stereotactic radiotherapy and so-called breath-hold irradiation (respiratory gating). Further equipment includes a CT simulator and a Bravos brachytherapy device. Within the Vysočina Region, this centre is the only one

able to provide curative radiotherapy (particularly for gynaecological, urological and gastrointestinal tumours, as well as breast, lung, and head and neck tumours).

The KOC of Jihlava Hospital cooperates with other oncology centres in the Czech Republic, most often with the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute (MOÚ) in Brno and Motol University Hospital in Prague.

Staff of the Oncology Department attend a number of major oncology conferences in the Czech Republic and abroad every year, and we organise regional seminars on oncology topics with the participation of leading Czech experts in the field. As opportunities allow, we take part in national and international clinical trials and are active in publishing and lecturing.

The success of cancer care in the region is assessed by a number of criteria, one of the most important being the 5-year survival of patients. In this parameter, the KOC of Jihlava Hospital is fully comparable with other centres, including university hospitals, and for some tumours it is even better (e.g. breast, ovarian and stomach cancer, malignant melanoma, etc.). Another important criterion is the success of prevention; for example, in breast cancer screening we achieve the highest coverage of the female population in the Czech Republic, which is reflected in a higher detection rate of early stages and therefore in more successful treatment of this dreaded disease. Unfortunately, many cancers still do not end in recovery and patients eventually succumb to their disease, but here too we can take pride in very well-managed palliative and terminal care for these patients.