Voices
Voices from WOF: “We’ve been talking to decision makers for 20 years. It hasn’t worked. We have to engage better with the public”
What progress can we point to? In the last 10 years we have seen significant progress in science and the depth of understanding of cancer – its complexity and biology. We also have new tools available, so patients with cancer…
Voices from WOF: What is not being discussed is how do we improve wellbeing?
What progress can we point to? I think we have made good progress in prevention, secondary prevention, especially in terms of screening for cervical cancer, HPV vaccination, elimination of cervical cancer – that is where we are heading in the…
Our new journal from India is enriching the cancer publications landscape
We launched Cancer Research, Statistics and Treatment at the internationally renowned Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, in 2018. It was my colleague, Professor of Medical Oncology, Kumar Prabhash, who prodded me to start the journal. I had already been the Editor-in-Chief…
Childhood cancer: let’s close this equity gap of haves and have nots
Trying to improve the survival chances for children with cancer is the day-to-day work of Kidzcan in Zimbabwe. Support and advocacy groups in Western countries supplement the work of their health services. By and large, we are those services. We…
Obesity and cancer: 12 things clinicians and patients should know
The significant link that has been clearly established between obesity and risk of 13 types of cancer means that many patients in the ‘obese’ category can be offered an opportunity to improve their health and their prognosis. Currently, more often…
GDPR: Why patient control over our health data might not be such a bad thing
Cancer patients want our data shared and used in ways that could help us, and those like us. Why wouldn’t we? That’s why patients and patient organisations are broadly supportive of EU proposals to create a Cancer Patient Digital Centre,…
Angelita Habr-Gama: putting Brazil on the cancer research leaderboard
Brazilian surgeon Angelita Habr-Gama changed the way that lower rectal cancer is treated when she discovered that many patients treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiation for early rectal cancers showed no residual disease and yet were still undergoing abdominal perineal resections. She…
Message from a Ukrainian oncologist: Please prioritise my patients ‒ if you don’t who will?
Cancers do not stop growing because there is a war. But cancer patients stop being seen as a priority… unless you are a patient or family, or a clinical oncologist like me. I am heartened by the commitments made by…
Crisis in the Ukraine: we can help by doing what we do best
As the conflict in the Ukraine enters its second week, we in the cancer community are trying to work out how best we can help patients and their families ‒ those who remain and those who have fled to neighbouring…
How we turn lung cancer care into a European success story
Opportunities to make significant headway against cancer don’t come around very often. This year, an alignment of science and European cancer policy is opening such an opportunity in relation to lung cancer ‒ Europe’s single biggest cancer killer. Speaking as…