The sooner we diagnose the cancer, the better the chances of recovery and survival. Early detection increases the patient’s chances of surviving the disease 18-fold, insists Simon Stevens, head of the National Health Service (NHS), the public health service in England. Early detection of cancer can therefore make all the difference and save lives. According to him, improving the speed of diagnoses is the most important challenge currently facing the health authority he heads.
He cites as an example the colon cancer survival, for which there are “staggering” differences in survival rates, depending on how quickly the pathology was spotted. “Nine out of ten people diagnosed with stage one or two of the disease are still alive five years later, according to official figures. But 19 out of 20 cases identified later do not survive,” he explained to Telegraph.
Faster reviews
Faced with this observation, the NHS would test a program allowing general practitioners to send patients with suspicious tumors directly to perform scintigraphies (functional imaging technique). Currently, the patients concerned are forced to go through a specialist first, which delays treatment and reduces the chances of survival.
In the UK, around 330,000 Britons are diagnosed with cancer each year and 160,000 die from cancer.
In mainland France, the number of new cancer cases is estimated at nearly 211,000 for men and 174,000 for women.
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