... continued from previous page ( Lung Cancer in Africa: Challenges and Perspectives)
high risk cases, overburdened treatment centers and insufficient financial support. The ways to combat all these obstacles start by setting strategies for prevention and earlier detection in the low income countries. Public health awareness of the risk factors that cause lung cancer and the importance of avoiding / stopping smoking and banning asbestos should be clear and this is the role of public health authorities, medical journals and public media. The war against tobacco companies should start and everyone should understand the danger of smoking. This is done also by cooperation of scientific organizations of governmental and non-governmental organizations. Also, we should reduce air pollution and regulate the occupational exposure of the employees to avoid the appearance of lung cancer and mesothelioma. As for early detection, screening can help in high risk patients and many authorities and NGOs can help to catch the early cases. In the meantime there should be ways to access modern imaging techniques to detect the cancer and use the minimal requirements for diagnosis and care. Accordingly it is essential to set the treatment guidance protocols to facilitate the management of the patients and to educate and train the doctors that should acquire degree granting programs and get certificates in the oncological field. It is mandatory to lower the cost of health care to encourage the patients to go for treatment and to get the proper care. There should be special dealing for the economic pressure and avoidance of financial toxicities for the patient. The last point that has to be ameliorated in Africa developing countries is research through International collaboration as studying genetic polymorphism and relation to smoking and changing patient concept about drugs received in clinical trials that use new drugs, proper investigations and lower the cost of treatment and may get better outcome.
References: 1. Globocan 2012 (IARC): Estimated can- cer incidence, mortality and prevalence worldwide, section of cancer surveillance 2. Jemal A, Center MM, DeSantis C, Ward EM (2010) Global patterns of cancer incidence and mortality rates and trends. Cancer Epi- demiol Biomarkers Prev 19: 1893-1907. 3. Sankar- anarayanan R, Jayant K, Brenner H 2011: An overview of cancer survival in Africa, Asia, the Caribean and central America: the case for investment in cancer health services. IARC Sci Publ: 257-291. 4. Gaafar RM, Eldin NH (2005) Epidemic of mesothelioma in Egypt. Lung Cancer 49: S17-S20. 5. Tao Z, Shi A, Lu C, Song T, Zhang Z, etal. 2014: Breast cancer : Epidemiology and Etiology. Cell Biochem Biophysi.
Keywords: Lung cancer, cancer control, obstacles and perspectives, smoking
Broken Promises: The failure of South Africa’s priority areas for air pollution – time for action
OCTOBER 2, 2017 AT 9:58 AM
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