Ministry of Health launches an awareness campaign about lung cancer

Today, the Ministry of Health launched a lung cancer awareness campaign, coinciding with the World Lung Cancer Awareness Month, which is held during the month of November every year.

According to a statement by the Ministry, the campaign aims to raise awareness of the disease, how to prevent it, the risk factors that increase the probability of developing lung cancer, the symptoms of infection, and methods of diagnosis and treatment. The campaign also includes awareness of the harms of smoking and passive smoking.

According to the statement, lung cancer is considered the most common in Syria among men, according to national statistics from the National Cancer Registry in the Contagious Diseases Directorate – Cancer Control Department, and the seventh most common among women. Lung cancer topped the death rate resulting from malignant tumors.

The statement pointed out that the Ministry, in cooperation with the National Cancer Control Committee and all relevant authorities, has developed a protocol for early detection of lung cancer, and work is being done to localize and implement it.

According to the Ministry’s statement, the campaign will be a preventive awareness campaign, given that smoking causes about 85 percent of infections, knowing that early detection of the disease allows for a significant improvement in survival rates, and primary prevention (such as anti-smoking measures and reducing exposure to environmental risk factors) can reduce infection rates.

Inas Abdulkareem