WITH the number of people diagnosed with cancer expected to balloon in coming years, one of the nation’s leading surgeons and university professors is urging his colleagues and the Government to address current barriers to cancer care delivery.
In a sit-down with the Jamaica Observer editors and reporters last week to discuss Jamaica Cancer Society’s upcoming Relay for Life fundraiser, Professor Joseph Plummer cited a May 8 article published by The Lancet Oncology online, which says that by 2040, “there is projected a 75 per cent increase in the need for chemotherapy in low- and middle-income countries”.
“That’s exactly where Jamaica falls,” said Plummer, who is head of the Department of Surgery, Radiology, Anaesthesia, and Intensive Care at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) in St Andrew.
“It reflects both the increasing incidence of the disease and the fact that still, in these [low- and middle-income] countries, the majority of patients are advanced at the time of their diagnosis,” the surgeon said.
The study, as reported by Medscape Medical News, warns that almost all countries will face serious problems in their ability to deliver chemotherapy to cancer patients by the year 2040.
Medscape said the study predicts that the demand for chemotherapy will double by 2040, estimating that the number of patients who will require first-line chemotherapy will increase from 9.8 million in 2018 to 15 million in 2040. The largest proportion of those patients, Medscape said, will be residing in upper-middle-income countries, but of the remainder, an “estimated 75 per cent… will be living in low- and middle-income countries”.
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