Presentation of the Centre
The Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) is a public monographic cancer centre created in 1995 by the Catalan Department of Health, which provides oncology services to a reference population of 3.5M, 50% of the Region. The scope of the ICO includes prevention (including early detection of breast, colon and cervical cancer), diagnosis and treatment of different types of cancer in adults. It provides all kinds of oncological therapies, systemic treatments, BMT in all its typologies, CAR-T, and various radiotherapy modalities, including brachytherapy and intraoperative radiotherapy. It consists of 4 centres, three covering all oncological and haematological diseases and one only for the haematological, distributed throughout Catalonia. Each ICO Hub works with a tertiary general hospital, Bellvitge Hospital, Germans Trias Hospital, Trueta Hospital and Joan XXIII Tarragona hospital, which offer all cancer diagnostic and surgical procedures and all tertiary services and together provide integrated multidisciplinary cancer care. Additionally, every ICO centre works collaboratively with 21 community hospitals (ICO Network) in the reference area. ICO professionals provide cancer services in these centres, according to volume and complexity, with criteria of equity of access, including clinical trials. The ICO-Hospital General centres are reference at the national level for Sarcomas and other musculoskeletal tumours, genetic neuro-cutaneous syndromes, high and medium risk and first-line chemotherapy-resistant germ cell tumours, intraocular tumours in adults and children, renal tumours with vascular involvement and in mycosis fungoides. At the European level, they are ERNs for sarcomas (EURACAN) and rare genetic tumour-phacomatosis risk syndromes (GENTURIS).
Main Research Activities
ICO develop investigation activity with 47 cancer research groups in the following areas:
- Epidemiology and prevention research
- Preclinical and translational research
- Clinical research
- Cancer health services research
- Research in teaching and training
Core Facilities
- 196 beds
- 112 day care hospital positions
- 12 accelerators
- Brachytherapy
- Pharmacy robots
- Clinical Investigation Units
Education
The ICO participates in undergraduate training in Medicine and Nursing with the Universities of reference: the University of Barcelona, Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona, Autonomous University of Barcelona and the University of Girona.
It trains in the specialities of Medical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Clinical Haematology, Medical Physics, Pharmacy and Psycho-oncology.
It has a teaching unit for postgraduate training in collaboration with universities and other entities, including a Master's in oncology nursing, a Master’s in advanced clinical practice nursing in cancer, a Master's in palliative care for people with advanced diseases and a Master's in advanced medical skills. The unit also has the e-Oncologia platform for online training.