Dr. Kust for the Slowliving.hr portal on the occasion of World Cancer Day

On the occasion of the recently celebrated World Cancer Day, we asked ourselves what each of us can do when it comes to disease prevention.

Recently, on February 4, World Cancer Day was celebrated.

The initiative was launched by the Union for International Cancer Control back in 2000, with the aim of raising awareness, improving the level of information and encouraging personal, collective and governmental activities in the field of cancer control around the world.

The campaign is being celebrated in the period 2022-2024 under the slogan "Close the care gap", which seeks to highlight the inequality in access to care caused by place of residence, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age and other characteristics. Inequality in access to care is present almost everywhere, in both high-income and low- and middle-income countries.

Cancer is also a significant public health problem in the Republic of Croatia, and over 25,000 people are diagnosed with some form of malignant disease each year. In Croatia, people most often fight colon cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.

Regular check-ups are the foundation of prevention, and below we have highlighted the most common symptoms that require a quick response.

Colorectal cancer

– blood in the stool

– cramps or a constant feeling of bloating

– a feeling of incomplete emptying

– unexplained anemia

Lung cancer

– prolonged cough

– shortness of breath

– hoarseness

– chest pain

Breast cancer

– nipple discharge

– inverted nipples

– “orange peel” appearance on the breast

– swelling

– thickened skin

Prostate cancer

– difficulty urinating

– erectile dysfunction

The fact is that each of us can take some steps when it comes to prevention, and this was confirmed to us by Dr. Sc. Dr. Med. Davor Kust, director of the Anova Polyclinic and founder of the oncology network onkologija.net. You can read his statement below.

“Unfortunately, we live in a time when we are exposed to harmful factors from all sides that contribute to the development of various diseases, including cancer. Polluted air and soil, modified and contaminated food, a sedentary lifestyle that is often difficult to eliminate from everyday life due to work… It is in such an atmosphere that the importance of prevention increases even more, to remove from our lives at least those harmful factors that we can influence. According to some considerations, 30% or more cases of malignant diseases can be prevented by relatively simple procedures and changes in our own lives, such as not smoking, moderate alcohol consumption, regular physical activity and maintaining an adequate body weight. There is also an effective vaccine against certain infectious agents that have been proven to cause cancer, such as HPV and the hepatitis B virus. That is why I believe that each of us must take responsibility for our own health, because we can do a lot ourselves.”

All of this can remind us of how important it is to take care of ourselves and our health by listening to our bodies and the messages they send us every day.