By Abdellatif Sharaa

KUWAIT: The National Campaign for Cancer Awareness (CAN) held a workshop to raise awareness and follow up on cases of children cancers, with support from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences at the CAN training center on Tuesday. Oncologist Dr Khalid Al-Saleh spoke about the genetic changes and their relationship with cancer and explained that the genetic symptoms could be due to environmental reasons such as exposure to radiation, or carcinogenic products such as benzene, or could be hereditary.

He said the goal behind health awareness is guiding families, particularly mothers for early observation of primary symptoms as well as how to best deal with the sick child. Dr Amani Al-Basmi, consultant of cancer epidemiology, spoke about the most common children’s cancers in Kuwait. There have been 26,609 new cancer cases diagnosed between 2010-2019, she said, 4 percent of which were in children.

Dr Khalid Al-Saleh speaks with one of the women in the audience.

The age children diagnosed with cancer was on average nine years old for Kuwaitis and eight years old for non-Kuwaitis, she added. Leukemia made up 40 percent of cases and the death rate was 12 percent. Stem cells transplant and blood disease consultant Dr Sundus Al-Shareedah spoke about risk factors during childhood and the role that the mother’s awareness plays in early detection, adding that 12 types of children cancers were diagnosed. Dr Khalid Al-Saleh thanked participants and the media who have helped spread awareness of the disease in society.