KUWAIT: The National campaign for Cancer Prevention (CAN) launched the Thyroid Cancer Awareness Campaign under the slogan "Care is Health and Wellness”. Its activities will continue for a week to spread awareness of the importance of early detection to increase recovery rates.
In his keynote speech, CAN Chairman Dr Khaled Al-Saleh emphasized that it is essential to raise public awareness about cancer, identify risk factors and early signs of cancer diseases and determine where individuals can seek help in this regard.
He said that CAN commits to training doctors year-round on cutting-edge early detection techniques for head, neck and thyroid cancers, in addition to how to recognize the early signs with a view to reaching fast-track diagnosis and treatment.
CAN has trained as many as 1,617 primary care physicians and dentists until December 2024, he said, pointing out the training for nursing staff in skills of communications with cancer patients and their families. Dr Al-Saleh added that thyroid cancer affects women more than men and in case of early detection, recovery rates exceeds 95 percent.
Dr Iman Al-Shemmari, a CAN board member, said that public awareness about cancer diseases is the key to successful prevention. She added that awareness about thyroid cancer started with campaigns related to head and neck cancer and then moved to thyroid cancer by means of reaching out people and patients at shopping malls, public places, hospitals and health centers.
She added that patients were addressed and positive messages were sent to them, then primary care physicians and health centers were addressed about the initial signs of infection or the possibility of infection with the disease.
She stated that thyroid cancer ranks fourth in terms of the most common cancers in Kuwait, while it ranks second among Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti women after breast cancer. She explained that thyroid cancer does not have any symptoms at first, but as it grows, some symptoms and indicators appear, such as swelling in the neck, changes in the voice or difficulty swallowing, noting that there are many types of symptoms, most of which grow slowly and can be cured and recovered from with treatment.
She added that the goal of the campaign activities is to emphasize a healthy lifestyle free of smoking, walking and focusing on the psychological state, as these factors work together to raise immunity and improve the health of a person, which is the basis for fighting diseases in general and cancer in particular. She explained that in order to support the psychological aspects of patients and survivors, "we are in the process of launching the Makin Club in soon to attract the largest number of cancer survivors.”