By Adeola Ogunlade
The Lagos State Governor, Babatude Sanwo-Olu has restated its commitment to cancer care in the state as the government is set to launch a radiotherapy mini accelerator centre in General Hospital, Lagos.
Sanwo-Olu said this at the 57th Annual Scientific Conference organised by the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientific of Nigeria, Lagos State Chapter, (AMLSN) held at LCCI, Lagos.
Tagged: Breast Cancer Survival: Interrogating the Determinant brought together medical experts, laboratory scientists pharmacists, and oncologists. It’s featured: Metastatic Breast Cancer: Symptoms, diagnosis and outlook, the import of tumor markers and Haematological changes in early diagnosis of Cancer and their management, medical imaging in diagnosis and management of Breast Cancer.
He said that breast cancer is a big issue in Nigeria as it remains the number one killer cancer among women worldwide. The government is doing a lot to manage oncological disease generally and breast cancer is a top priority. The state government has established centre in Lagos State Teaching Hospital which is doing very well. Right now, we are in the process of establishing a radiotherapy mini accelerator in LASU and General Hospital, Lagos.
Sanwo-Olu noted that we are connecting with international agencies to ensure that we get the best treatment for cancer of the cervix and any other cancer for that matter. We have another centre like the one in LASU coming up in General Hospital, Lagos to address the sheer number of people going down with this disease.
He called for regular breast self-examination, clinical breast examination, and imaging which helps to detect breast cancer at a very early stage when signs and symptoms are not present.
In his presentation, the Consultant Clinical and Radiation Oncologist, Dr Muhammad Habeebu called for policies to improve the working conditions of health workers and reverse the brain drain also needs to be considered to have ample health specialists enough to implement standard care including multidisciplinary Team Approach to breast cancer treatment and improved survival.
Habeebu noted that a major challenge to our health sector is the brain drain which affects not only the doctors but other health professionals like the nurse, radiographers, and other health workers,
He said the brain drain is depleting the health sector that was hardly adequate even before the era.
“Our laboratories are ill-equipped with facilities needed for such tests very few and often reagents are not available. Nigeria can boast of only about 10 Radiotherapy facilities for about 200,000,000 instead of at least 800 machines for our population (IAEA recommended 4-8 per 1000,000)”.
“These machines are therefore overstretched with patient load and develop frequent breakdown with resultant long queues and delays in patient treatment. This worsens the prognosis for breast cancer patients”.
Over 70% of breast cancer patients are still present in late-stage when management is at best palliative.
He stated further that improving the survival of breast cancer in our patients will require a concerted effort to change the attitude of our patients and put up the necessary infrastructure and insurance.
Earlier, in his words, the Chairman, AMLSN, Lagos State, Olumide Fadipe said that the conference is set out to bring up academic cum professional discourse on trending health issues/challenges, be it of local or global relevance.
Fadipe said that the conference is to herald October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month which is aimed at increasing awareness about the impact of the disease, it also seeks to educate those concerned about the disease, including early identification of signs and symptoms associated with cancer, aside from major breast cancer charities,
“The breast has been described as women’s most defining attributes of motherhood: femininity: Sexual Attraction and pleasure, therefore no effort should be spared to preserve this hallmark.