The Spanish Association Against Cancer warned this Sunday that, despite the fact that in the Canary Islands there are 679,894 people between 50 and 69 years old who have the right to participate in population screening programs for colon cancer, more than 400,000 have not yet done so.
This consideration has been made by the Spanish Association against Cancer in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in a statement on the occasion of the celebration tomorrow of World Colon Cancer Day, and in which it underlines the need to participate in early detection programs that help save lives.
In this regard, it specifies that in the Canary Islands 1,754 new cases of colon cancer were diagnosed, of which 871 were in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and 9 out of 10 people can survive the disease if it is detected in time.
Despite this, the participation by the Canary Island population in the prevention program for colorectal cancer barely reaches 38.4%, the entity regrets.
Faced with this reality, the Spanish Association Against Cancer makes a call to the population at risk with the aim of participating in colon cancer screening programs, a key tool for early detection and reduction of mortality from this disease.
Not all autonomous communities have the same system for participating in screening programs, as in some it is done through a letter and collection of the kit at the health center and in others there is active participation of the community pharmacy.
In the Canary Islands, the system for participating in screenings is done through a letter or SMS indicating the time and health center to which you should go to collect the kit, and later you will deliver it to the same health center.
The communication of positive results is done through a phone call and negative results by email or letter.
The objective of prevention screenings is to detect bleeding lesions that may correspond to polyps or premalignant and even malignant lesions that would not be detected until the disease is more advanced, when the possibilities of treatment and cure would be lower.
Participating in colon cancer screening programs also allows detecting premalignant lesions or polyps that, in the future, could become malignant tumors and thus remove them and therefore, continues the Association, participation in this screening also allows preventing the appearance of cancer.
To guarantee equity, benefit the Spanish population and have a real vision of the situation of colon cancer screening programs, the Association believes it is necessary for all autonomous communities to make the data of their territories public and accessible.
