Voices
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…
Liver patient advocates to Europe’s cancer community: can we talk?
Europe’s Beating Cancer plan is galvanising the cancer community behind efforts to tackle rising trends that are currently on course for an almost 25% rise in deaths from cancer across Europe by 2035. We want to help. Liver cancer is…
We need a National Cancer Institute! Why Italy should follow the example of the US and France
The genomic revolution and advances in technology are making the pursuit of innovation in oncology increasingly challenging. In Italy, the number and the diversity of the players in the field of experimental and clinical research, and the output of indexed…
When your patient tells you they’re still not better, please accept what they say
“A staggeringly high number of patients still suffer from significant health issues years after being declared disease free.” The words of Dorothy Keefe, head of Australia’s national cancer agency and chair of the 2021 ESMO Congress supportive and palliative care…