Avalanche increase in the number of patients. The new director of the National Institute of Oncology is sounding the alarm
– We can see an increase in cancer cases in Poland, we need to take care of prevention. It is necessary for the National Oncology Network to come into force, we only have a year to prepare it, we must use this time as best as possible – says “Wprost” Dr. Beata Jagielska, new director of the National Institute of Oncology – National Research Institute in Warsaw.
Katarzyna Pinkosz, “Wprost”: We recently celebrated World Cancer Day, but due to the fact that the number of cases in Poland is still growing, we should actually celebrate the “day of cancer prevention and treatment” almost every day. Is there an increase in the number of patients seeking help at the National Institute of Oncology?
Beata Jagielska, director of the National Institute of Oncology in Warsaw: Unfortunately yes.
We see an exponential increase in patients, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, when some patients did not report to doctors or for preventive tests. In 2023, we had nearly half a million outpatient consultations alone.
The largest group, almost 100,000. people were women with breast cancer, and the second most frequently consulted were people with melanoma and other skin cancers, as well as soft tissue and bone sarcomas.
The next group consisted of lung cancer patients. We see on average 2,000 breast cancer patients in our outpatient clinic per week, and unfortunately these numbers are increasing. The same is true for patients with other cancers.
We all know that early detection is very important in cancer. Today, there are already possibilities of early detection of some cancers; among others breast cancer, colon cancer or lung cancer. And yet we still use this research too rarely. How to change it?
