“To close the gap in cancer treatment” is the motto of this year’s World Cancer Day on February 4 and the Panhellenic Medical Association (PIS) calls on the state to embrace the basic ideas of universal right and equality in cancer treatment, especially today when the personalized but also life-saving treatments for the sufferers have a high cost.

“Every year in Greece, there are about 68,000 new cancer diagnoses, while the deaths amount to about 33,000. The same time, hundreds of thousands are former cancer patients – survivors, who live many and quality years and pass away from another cause. The hope for a cure has become a reality, but at the cost of high costs that even the strongest health systems and insurance agencies of rich countries are struggling to cope with, as it continues to rise,” states the PIS. It is, as he notes, the next day in dealing with the various types of cancer, in which states are called upon to find complex, but effective solutions.

PIS adds that our country must complete the National Cancer Action Plan, in which the main objectives must be:

  • – Highlighting the value of prevention and early diagnosis to treat the disease.
  • – The development and introduction into clinical practice of diagnostic and therapeutic protocols and guidelines, in order to ensure the uniform provision of health care to citizens.
  • – The certification of structures and services.
  • – Ensuring the conditions for reducing the morbidity and mortality of cancer.
  • – The completion of the national archive of neoplasms for the systematic registration and study of cancer.

The Panhellenic Medical Association recommends to patients diagnosed with cancer to faithfully follow the treatment provided by their attending physician, avoiding all kinds of improvised treatments recommended by people who have nothing to do with medicine in order to exploit the pain and despair of patients.

“There must be social awareness that screening with mammogram after 40, colonoscopy after 50 and urological examination in men after 50, along with smoking cessation, HPV vaccination and balanced Mediterranean diet, they can reduce to a minimum the rates of occurrence of new cases”, concludes the PIS.