(dr) Egídio Santos / U.Porto
Manuel Sobrinho Simões, founder and director of Ipatimup
From January 19th to March 23rd, Ipatimup researchers and specialists from six district capitals will travel across the country to “deconstruct” the dogmas associated with cancer.
The Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of the University of Porto (Ipatimup) will once again leave the laboratories and hospital offices to talk to the population about the latest scientific and medical advances in the field of cancer.
From January 19 to March 23, 2023, the 2nd edition of the initiative “Treat cancer for you” will pass through six district capitalstaking with them some of the best local and Ipatimup specialists in highly relevant cancers: lung, breast, colon, prostate, skin and pediatric tumors.
After a highly successful first edition, which brought together hundreds of people all over the country, this second edition comes at a time when budgetary constraints and the pandemic still make themselves felt in terms of oncological diseases, with an impact both on the increase in mortality and on the number of late diagnosed cases.
Ipatimup thus begins this new cycle of fortnightly sessions on cancer literacy with same objectives as the first edition: informing about the most recent therapies in the fight against cancer, simplifying concepts, raising awareness of early diagnosis and placing patients at the center of the discussion.
Some of the best national specialists join the initiative, with emphasis on the presence in all the sessions of the pathologist Manuel Sobrinho Simoesfounder and director of Ipatimup and Professor Emeritus of the U.Porto.
This time, the sessions also have the participation of the actor Jorge Seraphimwhich, through popular tales and some humor, will humanize the theme.
The first session, on pediatric tumorstakes place in Porto, on the 19th of January, and the second, on diagnosing and treating prostatewill be on the 9th of February, in Braga.
Four more sessions follow. lung cancerin Coimbra (February 16), about breast cancerin Funchal (March 2), skin cancer, in Vila Real (March 16), and colon cancerin Évora (March 23).
With these sessions, explain José Carlos Machadomember of the Board of Ipatimup, “we seek to deconstruct some dogmas associated with cancer”.
“It is true that it is a disease that, per year, kills more than 10 million people worldwide and more than 28 thousand in Portugal, but its diagnosis is far from constituting a death sentence”, says the researcher.
“In fact, early diagnosis and evolution in treatment place us today in a situation where the cancer-associated mortality is less than 50%“, adds José Carlos Machado.
According to the same official, “these sessions are intended for all citizens, as we are all at risk of developing cancerand if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that a well-informed cancer patient is a better-treated patient”.
