On the third weekend of May, the 19th Spring Interactive Conference of the Society of General Practice of the Czech Medical Association of J. E. Purkyně (SVL ČLS JEP) took place in Prague. One part of the program was the workshop titled “Cancer Prevention in General Practice.”
The second part of the workshop saw great interest in the presentation by Associate Professor Marián Hajdúch, MD, PhD, Director of the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Olomouc, and Medical Director of the National Institute for Cancer Research (NICR). He opened by reiterating the importance of prevention as a fundamental pillar of medicine. “In the general practitioner’s office, we apply not only primary prevention—addressing risk factors—but also secondary prevention, which focuses on early detection, and tertiary prevention—monitoring disease recurrence and improving prognosis.”
A key tool of secondary prevention is screening. “Beyond saving lives, screening offers major economic benefits—it helps reduce healthcare costs, particularly by enabling treatment of cancer in its early stages. As the first point of contact for patients, the GP plays a crucial role in motivating participation in screening and in patient education. Increasingly accessible self-sampling options and point-of-care diagnostics also enhance patient responsibility and encourage active involvement in prevention,” Prof. Hajdúch emphasized.
There are currently five national cancer screening programs in the Czech Republic. The core trio includes cervical cancer screening, mammographic screening, and colorectal cancer screening. “In recent years, two more pilot programs have been launched—lung cancer screening since 2022, which still faces challenges in active participation, and prostate cancer screening from 2024,” noted Prof. Hajdúch. He added that both new programs reflect advances in personalized prevention, aiming to target high-risk population groups.
In the future, individual screening of people at increased cancer risk—especially those with genetic predispositions or a positive family history—will be essential. This primarily concerns carriers of mutations linked to hereditary cancer syndromes, such as BRCA mutations or Lynch syndrome. “The number of genetically targeted screening tests is expected to grow significantly in the coming years,” said Prof. Hajdúch, noting that the current cost of whole-genome sequencing has dropped to around CZK 26,000 and continues to fall. He also pointed out that “virtually every cancer patient diagnosed before the age of 35 should undergo genetic testing, as there is a high probability of a hereditary cause in such cases.”
New Approaches Help Overcome Screening Barriers
Despite advances, participation in screening still faces several barriers. Common challenges include low health literacy, geographic inaccessibility, and, for example, embarrassment related to gynecological exams. “These are precisely the groups from which patients with advanced-stage cancers tend to emerge,” warned Prof. Hajdúch. He stressed the need for flexible adaptation of screening pathways to address these obstacles. One possible solution is to combine multiple screening tests into a single preventive package, offered at one location and time, or to provide a variety of testing options tailored to the individual needs and preferences of patients.
An example is the use of kits allowing women to collect a vaginal sample at home and send it to an accredited lab to test for high-risk HPV strains. As Prof. Hajdúch noted, HPV testing is a highly sensitive and objective method (unlike cytology) with excellent negative predictive value—if a woman tests negative for HPV, her risk of cervical cancer is nearly zero. Self-sampling has been shown to yield results comparable to those collected by gynecologists (Jaworek et al., 2025). Several independent studies (Ondryášová et al., 2015; Ngo et al., 2024) have confirmed that this method is well accepted by women and helps engage the segment of the population that traditionally avoids organized cervical screening.
“A similar potential is now emerging in the screening of HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancers, which have surpassed cervical cancer in incidence in the Czech Republic, with more than 800 cases annually and rising,” said Prof. Hajdúch. Currently, there is no established screening method for these cancers. So-called gargle tests (GARGtest), originally developed at Prof. Hajdúch’s institute for SARS-CoV-2 detection, now allow patients to self-collect a sample from the oral cavity for subsequent HPV testing.