Institut Catala d'Oncologia

The Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO, in Catalan) is a public institute that was created in 1995 by the Ministry of Health of Catalonia (one of the 17 autonomous communities that make up Spain). Following the Comprehensive Cancer Centre model, defined by the European Organisation of Cancer Institutes, ICO takes a monographic and comprehensive approach to cancer and covers prevention, care specialist training and research. To date, it is the only centre of this nature in the whole of Spain. ICO has three centres (l’Hospitalet de Llobregat –Barcelona–, Girona and Badalona) that work together with three public general university hospitals. This collaboration allows us to offer in an integrated way the full range of services related to cancer: prevention, diagnosis, surgery and treatment as far as palliative care. In this area ICO is an international referent (ICO has recently been designated World Health Organisation Collaborative Centre on Palliative Care Public Programmes), and we also outstand in germinal and lung tumours. The institute has one of the biggest technological infrastructures in southern Europe (10 linear accelerators). It has a pioneer programme in brachytherapy and provides the only radiosurgery in Catalonia. ICO also works with a network of 15 community hospitals to provide access to the best teams and most innovative treatments even for people living in rural areas far from the big hospitals. ICO is the oncological hospital of reference for 40% of the adult population in Catalonia (2.5 million people) and employs some one thousand professional staff. It has 168 oncohematological hospital beds and each year it admits 7400 patients and performs 18,000 first consultations. Since 1998, Institut Català d'Oncologia has been full UICC member.