'Establish National Cancer Register' (Page 20)

THE National Cancer Control Programme Focal Person, Dr Kofi Nyarko, has called for the establishment of a national cancer register to guide policy makers to take concrete decisions on the disease, which is claiming many lives.
He said lack of overall national data on cancer cases in the country was a great impediment to the fight against the disease.
Dr Nyarko said what was currently available were reports from the two institutional cancer registries at the Korle-Bu and Komfo Anokye teaching hospitals, which could not represent the whole country.
Addressing participants in a workshop on cancer control by the American Cancer Society International on Africa Cancer Information and Advocacy Initiative in Accra on Friday, Dr Nyarko stressed the need for a functional population-based cancer registry to generate complete, accurate, timely and confidential data on all cancer cases.
The workshop, which was attended by participants from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, was intended to help organisations improve their capacity to plan and implement cancer control initiatives such as information dissemination and advocacy activities.
In addition, the Focal Person on Cancer said such data would provide annual reports on the incidence, prevalence, treatment and survival of patients registered with a sufficient level of clinical and demographic detail to make them available to those involved in health planning and cancer management, as well as disseminate the needed information to all interested parties.
He described cancer as an abnormal growth of a cell in any part of the body, which mostly led to death if not controlled, adding that the disease connoted fear, since it was an illness that was often chronic and associated with grief and economic loss.
For his part, the Deputy Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr George Amofah, said globally, cancer constituted about 12 per cent of all deaths.
Linking cancer to cigarette smoking, Dr Amofah said there was the need for civic society groups to intensify the fight against tobacco.
Such a fight should be considered as a “fight against principalities and powers in high places”, since the cigarette manufacturers were very powerful groups, which could easily manipulate the system to their advantage without considering the harm their activities had on people’s lives.
Dr Amofah said Ghana was embarking on two main measures, the first being screening ,to fight cancer including breast, cervical, as well as prostrate cancers for early detection and treatment.
The second measure, according to Dr Amofah, was the introduction of Regenerative Health and Nutrition Programmes currently being embarked on by the Ministry of Health.
He pointed out that it was the best way to prevent cancers and other non-communicable diseases, which were gradually becoming a public health issue.
The chairman for the function, Dr Samuel Sackey of the University of Ghana School of Public Health, advised Ghanaians to avoid fatty foods and undertake physical exercises to protect themselves from cancers.