Cancer

Patients diagnosed with breast cancer need to have right information and expectations — Expert

Ifeoma Joy Okoye, Professor of Radiology, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Nsukka has stressed the need for patients who have been diagnosed with breast cancer or even metastatic breast cancer to have the right information and expectations. “It is our duty to encourage them to have open conversations with their healthcare teams to understand how they can be supported but also how they can participate in their own care – taking an active role in their treatment can help

BMI may not be best obesity indicator to assess risk for lung cancer

New research published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO) suggests the method used to calculate how obesity is measured may affect whether it is considered a risk factor for lung cancer. The JTO is an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Although the association between measures of obesity and both cancer incidence and outcome are clear in some solid tumor types such as breast, esophageal, and colon cancer, the relationship between obesity and lung cancer is

In Nigeria, cancer screening is an added cost and inconvenience

The perception of cancer screening an added cost and inconvenience is one of the major reasons why past efforts to raise awareness for cancer and treatment options have not been completely successful in improving cancer health behaviour amongst women in Nigeria. This was the submission of Nigerian First Ladies against Cancer (FLAC). At a press briefing held on Tuesday, FLAC members and Roche Nigeria noted that f it is institutionalized as one of the requisite tests, then cancer screening will become

Death and other reasons why you should stop smoking — #WorldNoTobaccoDay

On 31 May 2021, Nigeria and other African countries join the rest of the world in celebrating the World No Tobacco Day 2021 — a day that is set aside to highlight the risks of tobacco smoking especially as the world continues to deal with the global COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, revealed that smokers have up to a 50% higher risk of developing severe disease and death from COVID-19. “So quitting is best thing smokers

New tools to help countries build effective childhood cancer programmes

A suite of tools to help countries improve diagnosis and treatment of cancer among children is being released today by the World Health Organization, on International Childhood Cancer Day. The package includes a “how-to” guide for policy-makers, cancer control programme managers and hospital managers; an assessment tool to inform implementation; and a multilingual online portal for information-sharing. The new tools will support countries with implementation of the CureAll approach, adopted by WHO’s Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer.  The Initiative, launched in 2018,

COVID-19 has partially or completely disrupted cancer programs – WHO

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a “profound” impact on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer around the world, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, before highlighting that breast cancer has become the most common type of the disease. More than a year since the new coronavirus crisis began, its impact on cancer care has been stark, with “50 per cent of governments (having) cancer services partially or completely disrupted because of the pandemic”, said Dr. André Ilbawi, from WHO’s Department of

There is a new promising drug combination for melanoma

Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah (U of U) have identified a potential drug combination to treat uveal melanoma, a type of eye cancer. Lead author Amanda Truong, trainee in the McMahon Lab at HCI and student at the U of U, explains uveal melanoma patients frequently have changes in genes called GNAQ and GNA11, which are key targets for these drugs. This study was published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. “Uveal melanoma is a relatively