This Friday, February 4, 2022, we are reminiscent of the World Cancer Day announced by the UICC and its current motto: STRAIGHT DIFFERENCES IN ACCESS TO ONOLOGICAL PATIENT CARE.
Slovakia also joins this challenge - there are still many barriers to socio-economic factors, which prevent people from accessing life-saving preventive services, diagnosis, treatment and care. These barriers are due to the cultural context, geographical location, gender standards, level of income and education, discrimination or assumptions based on age, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability and lifestyle, and lead to large differences in the risks of developing and surviving cancer.
Minister of Health, Vladimir Lengvarsky: These risks were also compounded by the COVIDU-19 pandemic period. Estimates from international companies suggest that up to 1 million cancer cases could be undiagnosed in Europe or that one in five cancer patients in the EU is currently not receiving the adequate treatment they need. These are very alarming and very sad estimates.World cancer companies also point out that due to a pandemic, time delays in screening diagnostics in unsympathetic people can cause us to see an increase in the number of diseases in the more advanced stages in the years to come. One of the results of the analysis carried out by the National Cancer Institute is that in 2020 the number of diagnostic examinations in the global has decreased by about a fifth compared to 2019 in Slovakia.
The better report is that surgery, systematic treatment, radiotherapy including hypofractionation, is ongoing in patients already caught in symptomatic patients. Oncological screenings were interrupted in the short term only in spring 2020, in the months of March to May, during the 1st wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, otherwise the examinations are carried out without interruption in the context of preventive examinations and also in the context of the invitation by health insurance companies to those insured who do not undergo preventive examinations at specified regular intervals.

In 2020, over 38,000 women were examined in 16 certified mammographic workplaces, representing 10% of the target population of women aged 50-69 years and 310 breast cancers were detected, mostly in the early stages of the disease. This year, our aim is to achieve greater participation in these examinations and to certify more mammographic workplaces where the highest quality is ensured. In 2021, other workplaces for population mammographic screening were added, so we now have 19 workplaces under review, said the Minister for Health. Despite the pandemic, full preparation and ongoing activities were carried out in oncology screening programmes in Slovakia. In July 2021, a population screening for cervical cancer was officially launched and in September a population screening of colon and rectum cancer was launched.
The health department is also addressing very intensively the necessary changes at the level of cancer treatment, and the overall state's drug policy, in which we want to allow patients the most advanced advanced treatment. By amending the laws 362 and 363 we want to catch up with our lag towards the rest of Europe and make the patient the best treatment possible, create room for innovative therapies and make the instruments for negotiating agreements between the state and the manufacturer to enter our market, including improving the conditions for clinical trials, which often involve top Slovak doctors and things.
Slovakia is a solid part of the European Cancer Plan, as well as the Cancer Mission, and these strategies through the updated National Cancer Action Plans approved by the Government of the Slovak Republic in July 2021 or the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic will be followed as closely as possible by the Health Department, providing synergies and expert support to associations or health and non-governmental and patient organisations that have an inalienable place in the awareness-raising of citizens and the resolution of patients' problems.
Health is aware of the immense importance of cancer prevention, whether primary (e.g. HPV vaccination) or secondary, in particular by supporting population screening programmes. On this occasion, too, we want to ask all citizens to pay attention to prevention, to participate in preventive examinations and to accept the invitation of health insurance companies to appropriate screenings that may detect this vicious disease in good time.
The health department broadcasted an online discussion with experts on its FB site yesterday (https://fb.watch/aXvOs8fDFV/ ) for 3 screenings of cervical, breast, and colon and rectum cancers, who join the calls to undergo preventive screenings and screenings: MUDr. Alena Kallay, Mayor of the Preventive Center of St. Elizabeth's Oncology Institute: I would ask our women to indulge in a healthy lifestyle, to examine it by participating in a mammographic screening and to indulge in what modern medicine represents. Expert on cervical cancer, gynecologist, MUDr. Oliver Sadovský, CSc.. National Cancer Institute: Health in Slovakia provides people with certain prevention and this prevention is free of charge. If this prevention is available, it must be used. MUDr. Andrej Orságh, National Cancer Institute: Don't worry about prevention, screening, because it's not about proving you're sick, but you can prove to yourself that you're healthy and without fear you can continue to live your own life.
Further information on: https://health.gov.sk/?year-prevention-skrinings or to: www.noisk.sk.
By early diagnosis and treatment, we can all save the lives of many - even our own.