Affidea CEO on World Cancer Day: Sharing the same purpose of helping millions of lives every year
Every year, on February 4th, we raise awareness for World Cancer Day, highlighting the importance of early stage cancer detection, screening, and diagnosis to significantly improve cancer patients’ chances of survival.
On this day, I would like to thank all our healthcare professionals for their commitment in cancer care, engaging in this critically important health issue and being dedicated to providing the best medical care with an outstanding patient experience.
One in 5 men and one in 6 women worldwide develop cancer during their lifetime, and 17 people die every minute in their fight with cancer. Across Europe, the incidence is also increasing, leading to a rising demand in the need for high-quality cancer care. In 2018, in Europe, according to World Health Organisation, there were over 4 million new cases of cancer, and the figure is expected to rise by nearly a quarter to 5.2 million by 2040. This growing demand brings considerable pressure on healthcare systems and the cancer workforce and reinforces the need to ensure timely and efficient care for patients across the continent.
This World Cancer Day, at Affidea, we want people to know that many cancers can be managed, especially if they’re detected and treated as early as possible. By detecting cancer at its earliest stage, we seize the greatest opportunity to prevent millions of avoidable deaths.
Across Affidea, we pride ourselves in a specialised network of centers of excellence in oncology. Over the years, we have developed an outstanding Radiotheraphy and PET-CT network in both WE and CEE countries, including Banja Luka Center of Excellence in Bosnia, Fundeni Center in Romania and IRMET center in Italy where we have embedded at the end of last year the AI-powered imaging technology SubtlePET™, that enables up to four times faster PET scans without compromising the image quality.
With this new AI solution, Affidea IRMET became the first PET/CT center in Europe to pioneer this ground-breaking software for a better patient experience and increased efficiency with the same high-quality standards. This is particularly beneficial for patients who have difficulty in holding still for long periods of time. Less time in the scanner reduces patient’s discomfort and anxiety, improving their medical experience and, in the same time, reduces the potential of artifact-ridden images and the need for re-scans.
Our commitment to cancer care has been reinforced beginning of this year when, with great pride, we announced the installment in Banja Luka center of the new TrueBeam accelerators from Varian Medical Systems, the latest state-of-the-art accelerators which allows the most modern radiotherapy treatments. This new investment will allow us to provide the best radiotherapy treatment for patients when they need it most. In oncological cases, we understand that time is precious and this latest technology will allow us to treat our patients faster, with higher precision, trying to improve their health condition.
We believe our vision, our digital innovations and our highly experienced medical professionals across 16 countries offer us a unique position to significantly improve cancer management at the time when our patients need it most.
And for this, I am extremely grateful to each of our professionals, knowing that we share the same purpose - helping millions of lives every year.
Giuseppe Recchi