44 hospitals rated as Korea`s best in treating colon cancer

Forty-four hospitals, including Seoul Asan, Seoul National University, Seoul Samsung and Severance Hospital, have been selected as the country`s best for the treatment of colon cancer.

The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service on Friday said it evaluated 275 hospitals with records on colon cancer surgery last year, and picked the 44 best for treatment of the disease. The survey used 22 indicators, including professional staff, the confirmation ratio of patients with a family history of cancer, and the use of pre-surgery and in-depth diagnostic testing for cancer.

Seoul had the largest number of top-rated hospitals with 19, followed by Gyeonggi Province with 12, the Gyeongsang provinces with six, the Jeolla and Chungcheong provinces with three each, and Gangwon Province with one. None on Jeju Island made the list.

Gangbuk Samsung Hospital, Soonchunhyang University Seoul Hospital and Ulchi Hospital were rated in the second tier, while Seoul Medical Center, Sanggye Baik Hospital and the Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences made the third-tier list.

The survey found that medical institutions posted high average scores in the ratios of diagnostic testing and cancer history documentation. The ratio of in-depth diagnostic testing prior to colon cancer surgery was 82.1 percent. The ratios of cancer history and pathological documentation also exceeded 90 percent at all hospitals.

The actual death rate (1.23 percent) and projected death rate (1.23 percent) also fell 0.4 percentage points and 0.13 percentage points, respectively, last year from 2010.

The ratio of anti-cancer chemotherapy recommended by the medical community, however, was just 53.4 percent, and that of anti-cancer chemotherapy within eight weeks after surgery reached 56.9 percent. The ratio of radioactive therapy after rectal cancer surgery was only 40.2 percent.

The health review service said, “In many cases, medical institutions failed to meet the standards of assessment in radioactive therapy conducted on patients who underwent rectal cancer surgery. Efforts are needed to improve this over the course of treatment."

The agency plans to visit medical institutions rated inferior in the assessment to improve the quality of their treatment. The ratings of individual hospitals and the results of the assessment based on respective performance indicators are available on the agency’s website.

pen@donga.com