Rome, 3 Feb. (Adnkronos Health) — «Tumors have a social cost in Italy of about 20 billion euros per year and cancer represents in our country the first cause of death from disease in pediatric age, with an annual increase in new pediatric neoplasms double compared to the European average, but triple under one year of age, for a total estimated at 2,200 new cases a year in Italy among children and adolescents and health costs equal to at least 22 million euros».This is the photograph taken by the doctors of the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (Sima) who, on the eve of World Cancer Day, appeals to Italian and European institutions asking «to focus on primary prevention, especially with respect to the environmental determinants that affect the onset of tumors».
«In Europe cancer patients are 2.7 million and will exceed 3 million in 2030 — says Sima president, Alessandro Miani — We cannot talk about the fight against cancer if we give up at the start to fight the battle for the reduction of the incidence of neoplasms, that is, the number of new cases of cancer that occur every year. It is necessary to focus on primary prevention, instead of concentrating all efforts and resources on the objective of guaranteeing increasingly effective treatment to the highest number of patients. Unfortunately, we do not see serious commitments even by the European institutions towards the goal of not making people sick with cancer».
«To effectively fight cancer — underlines Miani — it is necessary first of all to remove exposures to environmental carcinogens, or substances certainly carcinogenic to humans (Class 1 IARC), for which the principle of prevention applies, and those probably carcinogenic (Class 2 IARC), classified as such by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, to which the precautionary principle enshrined in the Treaties of Functioning of the European Union should apply».
«Worrying is the rapid increase in the incidence data provided by official sources (Airtum / Aiom), which saw at least 376 thousand new cases of tumors in 2020, compared to 250 thousand new cancers estimated in 2010 — comments Prisco Piscitelli, epidemiologist and vice president Sima — Then there is a southern question still open, because in the South survival at 5 years after cancer diagnosis, while remaining in the European average, it is lower than in Northern Italy, i.e. 81% against 85%.Sima appeals to the Government to address the issue in a comprehensive way, not only in terms of access to care, but by including prevention among the priorities».
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Source — https://www.univadis.it/viewarticle/tumori-medici-ambiente-in-italia-costano-20-mld-lanno-serve-piu-prevenzione