Cancer patients across Europe are being denied care for unscientific, unfair and secretive reasons, experts have claimed.

The Federation of European Cancer Societies (FECS) has called for an economic evaluation of all effective forms of cancer care to ensure that all patients are able to benefit from the best treatment.

In a report published in the European Journal of Cancer, FECS warns that cancer poses a major burden to society.

Four in every ten people world-wide develop the disease, and of those about six in every ten will die from the consequences.

Scientific research has brought great advances in cancer treatment, both in new drugs and technologies.

However, FECS warns that scarce healthcare resources and increasing patient demand mean that new treatments are rationed.

FECS says that rationing decisions are being taken by individual healthcare providers working under tight budgetary constraints, rather than being clearly laid down by governments.

The result is that patient access to care can vary between providers and hospitals, and access to treatment is being determined in an unscientific, unfair and secretive way.

FECS calls for international collaboration to research the effectiveness, cost and impact on society of different cancer treatments.

Unsustainable situation

Professor Dieter Hossfeld, FECS President, said: "The situation is becoming unsustainable.

"There can be differences in which treatments are available to patients not just between countries, but between regions and even individual hospitals in the same town.

"It is clearly unacceptable when seriously ill people have to contemplate moving home in order to get the best treatment."

Professor Hossfeld said it was essential that local health providers were able to decide what was best for their own patients.

But he said: "The increasing cost of healthcare has meant that many who should be benefiting from important advances in medical research are unable to do so for purely economic reasons.

"As doctors, we want to see everyone get the best treatment; if this is not possible, at least decisions should be made openly and on a rational basis."

Dr Lesley Walker, head of scientific information for the Cancer Research Campaign, said a pan-European collaboration would be welcome, but warned it would be difficult to apply guidance across the contintent.

She said the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) had been set up in the UK with the specific task of standardising care.

However she said: "The pot of money is limited and with the best will in the world it is probably not going to be possible to be able to provide treatment to absolutely everyone we would like to on the off-chance that it might increase their period survival for a short period."