Early detection could have a good survival rate for up to 40 percent of cancer patients, heard a national childhood cancer conference in Hanoi on November 13.

The conference, the 7th of its kind, is one of the annual activities of the Vietnam Childhood Cancer Programme, which is funded by Sweden’s Lund University and implemented in Vietnam from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2015.

(Photo for illustration. Source: vov.vn)

 

The growing number of cancer patients is posing a huge challenge for the health sector. As many as 150,000 new cancer cases are reported every year. Leukaemia accounts for 30 percent of cases of child cancer.

Addressing the event, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thi Xuyen appreciated the Lund programme for helping improve the quality of cancer diagnosis and treatment for child patients through training specialised health workers, updating treatment courses, and providing medical equipment.

She emphasised the need to launch more communication campaigns to increase parents’ awareness of this disease, organise prenatal and newborn screening in order to early detect cancer cases, and apply cutting-edge treatment.

Domestic and foreign scientists to the conference, scheduled to wrap up on November 14, are expected to present reports on treatment results of acute myeloid leukaemia, lymphoma, and brain tumour, as well as on new technologies and cancer medicine.

Source: VNA