11.6.2022. Blue Star Day celebrated

Author: Davor Kust, MD PhD

As in the past few years, the onkologija.net team participated in the celebration of Dress in Blue Day, which was held for the sixth year in a row and was organized by the PINK life patient association. This is an event that aims to raise awareness about the importance of prevention and early detection of colon cancer.

The main event was on Saturday, June 11, 2022, in the center of Zagreb, at Gajeva 7 on the terrace of the Espresso coffee bar. Along with coffee, guests were given almonds that alkalize the body, vitamin orange juice, and an educational leaflet, in order to symbolically raise awareness of the need to lead a healthy lifestyle and go for preventive checkups.

People from public life joined the gathering, and you can see how everything went in the pictures.

Online lectures were also held as part of the event via the Facebook Live platform:

June 8 Irma Goršić, MD, internal medicine specialist, internal oncology specialist - "Support program for people with digestive system cancer."

June 13th, Dr. Davor Kust, MD, a specialist in oncology and radiotherapy - "I have colon cancer - What now?".

According to the latest data, around 3,500 people in Croatia are diagnosed with this disease every year, and more than 2,000 of them die. One of the main reasons for the high number of deaths is the low response to preventive examinations, primarily the fecal occult blood test as part of the National Colon Cancer Early Detection Program. This is a test that can detect the disease in a large number of patients at an early stage, thus enabling treatment, and the test itself is very simple and can be performed at home. Unfortunately, only slightly more than 20% of people invited to take the test actually take the test. According to the above, Croatia is at the very bottom of Europe, so it is not surprising that in many developed countries we can still see an increase in the number of colon cancer patients, but despite this, a significant decrease in mortality.

It is for this reason that health-educational events such as Blue Star Day serve to remind the public once again of the importance of prevention and early detection of this disease, and so that people do not neglect the most important thing they have - their own health. Below you can also watch Dr. Kust's lecture, which is also available on the Anova Polyclinic's YouTube channel.