[Critical paths and economical efficiency on cancer therapy]

The critical paths of cancer patient care are discussed. The number of cancer institutes which have introduced critical paths into patient care has been increasing in the past few years. The effect of critical paths is to standardize the patient care process, shorten the length of the hospital stay of cancer patients, reduce the cost of care, have a well-managed cancer care team, and satisfy patients with full information on the care schedule. Combined with clinical practice guidelines, protocols and algorithms, critical paths are a more powerful tool with which to improve the efficiency and quality of cancer patient management in hospital care.