Qatar Cancer Society

انضمت الجمعية القطرية لمكافحة السرطان ( كعضو فعال ) إلى الاتحاد الدولي لمكافحة السرطان، حيث تهدف هذه المنظمة إلى مكافحة مرض السرطان في منطقة دول مجلس التعاون الخليجي وباقي الدول عام

وتعتبر المنظمة بأن مرض السرطان هو مرض خطير وبالتالي يجب القضاء عليه ومحاربته بعدة وسائل أهمها : تبادل المعرفة والاختصاص حول مرض السرطان وكيفية الوقاية منه بالوسائل المتقدمة ، تحويل النتائج العلمية إلى السريرية 0، وضع منهجية من أجل خفض التفاوت والاكتشاف المبكر والعلاج والرعاية من أنواع أمراض السرطانات كافة ، تقديم أفضل رعاي ممكنة لجميع مرضى السرطان

وبالتالي تهدف المنظمة إلى عمل أبحاث عن التدخين وصلته بالسرطان عموماَ ، والسعي إلى تحسين نوعية الرعاية لمرضى السرطان

ومن أجل تحسين نتائج المعالجة للناجين من مرض السرطان

عملت منظمة الاتحاد الدولي لمكافحة السرطان على وضع خطة عمل وهي :

اكتشاف الأعراض البيولوجية ، الجسدية والنفسية والاجتماعية والآليات ، وتفاعلاتها والتي تؤثر على مريض السرطان ومدى استجابة المرض والعلاج والشفاء منه ، الإسراع في تطوير البحوث التي تدخل في هذه المجالات والتعاون مع الآخرين في المجتمع الدولي مثل منظمة الصحة العالمية من أجل ضمان إيصال المعلومات الجديدة والتدخلات الايجابية ضد مرض السرطان ، التوسع في تطوير واستخدام أدوات التقييم المتصلة بالصحة ونوعية الرعاية بعد العلاج وذلك للناجين من مرض السرطان ، جمع بيانات ومعلومات دقيقة وذلك من أجل البحث والتطوير مما يؤدي إلى تحسين جميع جوانب الرعاية الممكنة لمرضى السرطان في بلدان مجلس التعاون الخليجي ، خلق ثقافة الإبلاغ عن نوعية العلاج والرعاية حتى يمكنا من استعراض الخدمات وتحسينها في دول مجلس التعاون الخليجي من أجل أن يلقى المرضى المعالجة المثلى

أما الفوائد والنتائج المتوقعة من عضوية للاتحاد الدولي لمكافحة السرطان فهي عديدة أهمها:

تسهيل التشخيص والعلاج الفعال لمرضى السرطان من خلال فريق عمل طبي متخصص يشمل ( أطباء وموظفين متخصصين بأمراض السرطان ) ، تقليل الوقت الذي تستغرقه التقارير الطبية واعتماد علم الأمراض السريرية ، تأييد واعتماد معايير مقبولة دولياَ للتشخيص ، المشاركة الفعالة في برامج التعليم والتي تتضمن التوعية ضد مرض السرطان في وسائل الأعلام المختلفة ، تحسين نوعية الخدمة المقدمة إلى المريض وذلك من خلال توفير الدعم والتعليم وتقديم العون له ، والمشاركة في المؤتمر الوطني للسرطان بهدف تبادل المعلومات الطبية الحديثة ،تحسين الوصول إلى الخدمات الجيدة لمرضى السرطان ،زيادة سرعة التشخيص الشامل والتشخيص السريع في العيادات وبالتالي تفادي إجراءات جراحية رئيسية طارئة ، وأخيراَ ، عمل خطة أو برنامج وطني لكيفية الوقاية من مرض السرطان وذلك من خلال مواصلة تطوير شبكات إقليمية

Thanks for saving my life

Thanks for saving my life

When Pam MacNaughton was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago her world didn’t stop … within three months she was back at work, serving drinks at 30,000 feet in the sky.

Pam, who has lived and worked in Bahrain for 23 years, was treated here and believes that she received the best possible care.

She said: “My Bahraini doctors were absolutely fantastic. The treatment was as good if not better then I would have received had I gone home to Liverpool.

“I could turn around and say I’ve been lucky but I’m sure the doctors had a lot to do with it.”

But she also says that Bahrain desperately needs to establish support groups to help breast cancer victims cope with the disease.

Pam, 44, a Gulf Air flight safety and quality assurance coordinator, was diagnosed with breast cancer by doctors at Salmaniya hospital. A lumpectomy was conducted and some lymph nodes from under her arm were removed for testing. The day after the operation her surgeon confirmed she had cancer.

“I just sat there stunned and he came and put his arm around me,” she said. “I was on the pill, I was 39, I hadn’t had a baby, I drank and I smoked. I thought I was just asking for it. But cancer knows no boundaries, it doesn’t matter how good or healthy you are.”

Pam spent a week at Salmaniya recovering after the operation.

“I won’t have a bad word said about Salmaniya. Everyone was brilliant, the nurses were lovely and doctors were great,” she said.

Because the cancer was discovered in its earliest stage Pam did not have to go through chemotherapy, but for the next six weeks she had radiotherapy five days a week for one minute everyday.

“If I was in the UK I would have had to drive three hours from home to get treatment, here it was very convenient,” she said.

Fighting cancer can be an incredibly lonely experience but for Pam going back to the UK was never an option. Bahrain is “home”, she explained.

However, she felt the kingdom lacked the after-care only a support groups can provide.

“Someone from the church came to visit me when I was in hospital but that was it. I was on the phone everyday to my mother who had a friend who was recovering from cancer and if I had a question I would get my mother to ask her to ask it at her next meeting. I got my support from home but there really should be something here.”

As Pam started to recover a friend and Gulf Air colleague who had also been diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 39 and treated in Bahrain provided much-needed support.

She said: “I found out I had breast cancer just as she stopped wearing a wig. She had a mastectomy and chemo here and she would call me every so often and ask how I was. It was very supportive.”

Sadly, a year after Pam finished her treatment, her friend’s cancer had spread to her liver and she passed away.

“Even to this day, I will be driving along and something will trigger a memory and I’ll start crying,” she said.

Today another friend and Gulf Air colleague is also being treated in Bahrain for breast cancer. They often talk about their experiences and have become sources of strength for one another.

“My friend thought she had found another lump last week, and it’s scary, but we ended up laughing about it,” she said.

Pam is a committee member of Bahrain’s breast cancer charity Think Pink and hopes that through the organisation’s work they will be able to help people battling breast cancer who need someone to talk to.

“If you talk to someone who has been through it, it can be very helpful,” she said. “You can build up a network of survivors who can help each other.”

Gulf Weekly

Breast Cancer Campaign

THINK PINK

Think Pink
World Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October
Organised by Think Pink
Bahrain Cancer Society
The Think Pink Annual Gala Dinner will be held on 26 October
Various breast cancer events will also be held in companies, schools and societies

For more information
Contact Ms Jules Sprakel on +973 3 907 6717
or e-mail jules_sprakel@hotmail.com

GALA DINNER TO HELP POOR

Gala Dinner to Help Poor
The Ecumenical Conference of Charity's Annual Fundr! aiser
October 26 at the Dilmun Club, Saar



Music from the Dilmun Dixielanders and performances by Lisa Morgan, accompanied on piano by Lis Holman
Prize draw for air tickets, paintings, MP3 players and other items

For information
Contact Ms Mariam George on +973 3 987 0815

For more details on the dinner dance
Contact
Avril Taylor on +973 3 966 8828 or
Claude Fernandez on +973 3 986 3792

LOSING THE WAR ON CANCER

Are we fighting the wrong war. Does it make more sense to prevent cancer from happening?

Read More

WHY IS CANCER RISING IN THE GULF STATES

Millions of Dollars are being spent on detecting, managing and treating cancer. Pharmaceutical companies are spending Billions of Dollars on research for new chemotherapeutic drugs to eradicate the disease. Pure genetic causes for cancer account for less than 10% of all cancers. Managing cancer after it started is driven by economical factors. Companies that make the latest imaging equipment or the most expensive drugs stand to benefit from people's suffering. Environmental factors play a higher role. What our pregnant mothers eat or put on their skin and hair can be carcinogenic for their children. Our cleaning supplies at home need to be evaluated in controlled studies. We poison the air we breath. It is time to put more money on prevention rather than waiting for people to fall sick and die from preventable causes. It is time for the Gulf states to devote more money towards research on environmental oncology to prevent cancer from starting.

Environmental Oncology

The Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh is organizing studies regarding environmental causes of cancer. These causes are in our food, beauty products and cleaning supplies. Billions of Dollars have been spent on detecting and treating cancer. Resources have also been utilized for genetic causes of cancer. Genetic susceptibility account for less than 10% of caner cases. Unfortunetly, less money and resources have been devoted to finding environmental causes of cancer. 90% of us are born with healthy genes. During our lifetime, some environmental factor initiates the cancer process. Whether this is in products we use daily at our homes or our environment needs to be studied.

Oct 3, 2007

There is a myth that sheesha smoking is safer than smoking cigarettes because the sheesha smoke is filtered through water before it is inhaled. But recent studies have found that hookah smokers actually inhale more nicotine than do cigarette smokers because of the massive volume of smoke they inhale.
Life goes on...
Abdullah Al Alami


UAE: Cancer cases to rise five-fold

The UAE is to see its cancer population increase five-fold in 20 years - a frightening fact that requires preventative efforts now while there is still time.


Passive smoking does active damage

Peninsula On-line - Qatar
Coronary! heart disease and lung cancer related to tobacco smoking?

Mobile phone cancer alert for children

Dubai: Should children under 14 years of age use ! mobile phones?


Ovarian Cancer Aid

Wonder drugs being developed to work on the very genes which cause various types of cancer.


Lung Cancer Aid

The Qatar Cancer Society rang the alarm bell for smokers in the country cautioning that the incidence of lung cancer among men is on the rise.


Breast Cancer Campaign: 10 Years

XPRESS - Dubai,Dubai,United Arab Emirates
Sabina Khandwani, head of PR and marketing, BurJuman said: "We hope to give women across the UAE the opportunity to learn more about breast cancer.

Panel of Cancersafe tests now available in Dubai

Business Intelligence Middle East (press release) - United Arab Emirates
UAE. In Dubai, Dubiotech-based company Eastern Biotech & Life Sciences has announced a panel of cancer safe tests for the Middle East.

Cancer testing Oman Search Engine

cancer testing Oman Search Engine. Discover, browse and search cancer testing Oman sites.


Pattern of breast diseases in Kuwait Cancer Control Center

This data analysis suggested that pattern of breast cancer in Kuwait is similar to other countries in this region.


Think Pink backed

Gulf Daily News - Manama,Bahrain
Think Pink aims to spread awareness that breast cancer can be beaten if it is diagonised early.

Ban sheesha in Ramadan!

Gulf Daily News - Manama,Bahrain
"Ramadan tents are filled every night with people who smoke sheesha for hours, without realising its harmful effects," says Bahrain Anti-Smoking Society

THINK PINK

Think Pink

In an interview, Sabina Khandwani the BurJuman Head of Public Relations and Marketing talks about the cancer awareness campaign programme coming up at the mall
OBSERVING ITS 10TH anniversary this year, the BurJuman's 'Safe and Sound' breast cancer campaign, is aimed at women of all ages and ethnicities.
With females making the majority of the mall's customers, BurJuman realised the need for a comprehensive resource that provided information and education about breast cancer. The 'Safe and Sound' Campaign started in 1998 as an awareness campaign at clinics and also included the distribution of literature on breast cancer within the mall. It has so far been extended out to communities.
The awareness is designed to encourage women to do regular self-examinations and carry out further testing, including mammographies and clinical consultations.
This included working with partners and local government bodies to spread the message through a variety of activities across the UAE. Today, Safe and Sound is a year-long initiative that enjoys support from the public, government officials, sponsors and healthcare professionals.
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
BurJuman always has a line of events like fashion shows, and the Pink Walkathon. Tell me more about the events that will be happening this year.
This year's campaign will see a wider, fuller range of events than the previous years, including the 'Pink Walkathon', a walk for the charity on October 26. More than 4000 men, women and children of all ages and fitness levels wearing Safe and Sound T-shirts and caps, will join the breast cancer survivors who will lead the 3.6-kilometre walk.
Once again the Drums of Hope will lead the Pink Walkathon who will provide encouragement to the participants and add to the general merriment during the walk. After the walk, participants can enjoy a fabulous Jazz breakfast at BurJuman, with entertainment provided by jazz musicians. Select food outlets will set up breakfast stands in the South Village from where visitors and participants can buy delicious breakfast and settle down to enjoy the entertainment which also includes clowns, kids entertainment and face painters happy to paint you up in pink.
Another highlight will be the survivors fashion show. The breast cancer survivors will model creations of the various fashion tenants from BurJuman. The objective of this show is to demonstrate the power and willingness of the survivors who have successfully fought through their battle with cancer, and are still able to stand strong and look beautiful as they grace the runway.
There will also be a Harley Davidson road parade within Dubai and the outskirts, where bikers in Safe and Sound t-shirts will parade to support the cause. BurJuman has also lined up many exciting events related to music, art, dance and health and fitness demonstration to bolster the message of this campaign.
The mall is partnering with its sponsors who include Welcare World, Red Crescent Society of UAE, Dubai Health Authority, Barclays, Marina Exotic Interiors and Memon Investments. Existing partner Hertz continues to be a key member of the programme to spread the message of hope.
Recently, the mall organised the 'Cup for Cancer' day where one dirham of every cup of coffee purchased from the outlets including Dome Café, The Gallery Restaurant, Barista Café, U and Me, and Tea Leaf Merchants Café went for Safe and Sound Programme.
Tell us about the history of Safe and Sound campaign
The programme started off as a small awareness campaign in BurJuman 10 years ago and today is the oldest, largest, most credible and comprehensive breast cancer awareness campaign in the Middle East. Through our strategic partnerships we have been able to touch the lives of so many and hope to continue to spread the message.
It is obvious that this is part of BurJuman's 'corporate social responsibility', but how would you review the campaign and the return of investment for the company?
BurJuman does not make any money from Safe and Sound. All the money raised through fund-raising initiatives such as the Cup for Cancer, Pink Walkathon and from partners goes into driving the awareness campaign ahead.
Initially we received a lot of support from Western and Asian expatriates but in the last few years, we've seen a number of local Emirati women and Arab expatriates get involved in the fight against this deadly disease. This unyielding support is how we judge the return of investment.

Source: Khaleej Times