The IAEA will support Ukraine’s Ministry of Health in developing a comprehensive national cancer control programme to improve access to quality cancer care across the country. The support will come on the back of a recent IAEA-led imPACT review mission to assess the country’s cancer burden and its preparedness to respond to this major health challenge.
“Insights and findings gained through this review will help us build a roadmap to address cancer throughout Ukraine,” said Minister of Health Ulana Suprun. “The new cancer control programme could support the shift needed in our health system towards strengthening cancer services and care for all patients.”
According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), more than 140 000 people develop the disease each year in Ukraine, with over 85 000 deaths. The most common cancers are lung cancer in men and breast cancer in women.
The country is currently implementing a reform of its national health system with an initial focus on strengthening primary health services, a step which could also improve early diagnosis and treatment of cancer cases. “The imPACT review offers detailed recommendations to the country ahead of the formulation of the programme,” said Anuncia Benedicto, Programme Officer for the IAEA’s Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT), who coordinated the mission.
The mission’s experts, nominated by the IAEA, the World Health Organization (WHO) and IARC, assessed capacities in cancer prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment, palliative care and cancer information. The experts visited main public and private health care facilities, medical schools in the capital Kyiv and in the city of Lviv, and met key stakeholders engaged in cancer control, including representatives from civil society organizations. In addition, dedicated experts assessed the radiation safety of health care workers and patients, and the security of radioactive sources for medical purposes.
The experts observed that cervical and breast cancer screenings could benefit from a unified protocol covering all health care facilities. They also noted that clinical protocols for diagnosis and treatment are not always up-to-date and in some cases too advanced for the resources available in the public sector. They found that access to quality diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear medicine services in the public sector needs to be improved.
