| ANNOTATION |
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| Year : 2007 | Volume
: 10
| Issue : 2 | Page : 38-42 |
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Establishment of regional radiotherapy centres: A strategy for improving access to cancer treatment in Nigeria
JUE Onakewhor1, LR Airede2, KI Airede3
1 Materno-Fetal Unit, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City, Nigeria
2 Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Usmanu Danfodyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto, Sokoto State, Nigeria
3 Department of Paediatrics, Usmanu Danfodyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto, Sokoto State, Nigeria
Correspondence Address:
JUE Onakewhor
Materno-Fetal Unit, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City
Nigeria
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
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Cancers are malignant diseases that can originate in virtually all organs and without regards for age or gender. They are associated with high morbidity and mortality and only few of them are preventable. They are diagnosed when they are least expected, a situation that completely upturn the life of their victims. They are dreaded by both patients and clinicians. Cancers with premalignant stages (e.g. Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasm-CIN for cervical cancers) are preventable by screening and early treatment but most poor countries including Nigeria were yet to make the interventions available to the majority of their citizens. Consequently, many patients present with advanced stages of the diseases and so require radiotherapy services. Nigeria has only four functional radiotherapy centres for her large population of over 130 million people and many of the patients are disenchanted and ultimately resign to fate as they can hardly access them due to over-crowding, high cost and other logistic reasons. To obviate this problem, we recommend intensification of cancer prevention programmes and the establishment of regional radiotherapy centres strategy for improving access to cancer treatment in Nigeria.
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