RIYADH, 2 March 2005 — A nationwide awareness campaign on colorectal cancer was launched in the presence of a large gathering of the medical and paramedical community here yesterday. The monthlong program is being sponsored by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with Roche Pharmaceuticals.
Setting off the campaign, Dr. Khaled Muhammad Al-Aiban, deputy minister of health for planning and development, pointed out that recent reports have revealed that equal numbers of men and women have been affected by colorectal cancer in the Kingdom.
“The increasing number of colorectal cancer patients has necessitated the launch of a campaign of this nature,” he said. The purpose of the program, he said, is to prevent the disease and to diagnose it early to save the afflicted patients. “Early detection will help the patients to recover, while late diagnosis makes the doctors helpless in curing the malady,” he stressed.
So far, Dr. Al-Aiban said, 753 patients between the age of 56 and 59 have been diagnosed positive for colorectal cancer, of which 50 percent are women. Riyadh has the highest percentage of such patients followed by the Eastern Province, Al-Qasim, Makkah and Madinah.
Dr. Khaled Al-Merghalani, general supervisor for communications, told Arab News that the Ministry of Health plans to carry out this campaign through its 2,000 primary care centers, schools, hospitals, universities, government and nongovernmental organizations.
Dr. Merghalani said the National Cancer Center at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center is being run in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. Oncology clinics are also located in the Riyadh Armed Forces Hospitals, King Abdul Aziz Medical City, King Abdul Aziz Hospital in Jeddah and the King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh.
In his speech, the Country Manager for Roche Pharmaceuticals, Markus Aebi, said colorectal cancer, which affects the intestinal tract between the stomach and the rectum, is the third most common cancer in the world. In the Kingdom, he said, about 400 cases of colorectal cancer are diagnosed annually.
