The Central and East European Oncology Group (CEEOG) was established in 1983, initially as South and East European Oncology Group (SEEOG). At the time, SEEOG consisted of 15 institutions from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia. Over the next 16 years, the Group was chaired by Prof. Sandor Eckhardt from the National Cancer Institute in Budapest. SEEOG was then the only drug-oriented cancer research organisation in the region. In the 1980s and 1990s the Group conducted a series of phase II and III clinical trials in breast, ovarian, lung and head and neck cancer patients.

In 1988 SEEOG changed its name to Central and East European Oncology Group (CEEOG), as the latter better reflected the geographical location of its member countries.

In 1999 CEEOG chairmanship was transferred to Prof. Jacek Jassem from the Medical University of Gdańsk, Poland, and Gdańsk became the home of the new Data Center.

Since then, CEEOG has greatly expanded and now includes around 35 academic and community hospitals from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

CEEOG performs translational and investigator-initiated phase II clinical studies, and participates in large phase III trials carried out within international consortia. The group’s main focus is breast cancer. CEEOG is a member of the Breast International Group (BIG) and has participated in pivotal BIG studies for many years. Other global partners for cooperative activities in breast cancer include the EORTC (European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer), IBCSG (International Breast Study Group) and the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA (see  http://ceeog.eu/publications.html for the list of publications).

In 2005 CEEOG established its working party, the Polish Brain Metastasis Consortium (PBMC), chaired by Dr. Renata Duchnowska from the Military Institute of Medicine in Warsaw. PBMC has conducted several translational studies and now includes around 30 Polish and international research institutions (see http://www.pbmc.org.pl/en/publications/publications1.html for the list of publications).