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World Cancer Day 2016: COCIR Raises Importance of Technologies

Date

04 Feb 2016

Sections

Health & Consumers
BRUSSELS – 4  February 2016 – Today  is  World  Cancer  Day 2016  and  COCIR  is  taking this  opportunity    to  raise  awareness  about  the  new  and  efficient  clinical  processes that medical technologies are enabling for the benefit of citizens and cancer patients across the globe in the collective fight against cancer.
 
Product  and  services  delivered  by  COCIR  industries  (including  medical  imaging,  health ICT  and  radiotherapy)  provide  innovative,  advanced  and  effective  solutions  across the entire care cycle for the prevention,  screening, early diagnosis, treatment, palliative care and monitoring of various cancers.
 
Over  recent  decades,  the  medical  imaging  industry  has  been  instrumental  in  constantly innovating and developing advances in non-invasive technologies providing key tools that enable  early  prevention  and  screening  and  support  early  detection  and  diagnosis,  which in  turn  impact  on  clinical  outcomes  and  contribute  to  saving  lives.   The role  of  medical imaging in driving precision medicine, targeting the right patient with the right therapy at the  right  time,  is  also  of  paramount  importance.  Health  ICT  provides  an  infrastructure and  other  applications  supporting  the  complete  care  cycle,  allowing  for  more  efficientclinical  workflow  and  offering  decision  support  tools  to  facilitate  the  work  of multidisciplinary care teams in treatments and  gather better understanding of the cancer mostly through the transmission, sharing and analytics of secured data . Finally, advances in radiotherapy  now  enable  clinicians  to  cure  localized  disease,  palliate  symptoms,  and control  disease  in  incurable  cancers,  thereby contributing  to  improved  patient  outcomes and  minimizing  side  effects  in  a  cost-effective  way.  In  an  era  of  personalized  medicine, radiotherapy  beams  may  be shaped and  modulated  to  conform  to  the  exact  shape  of tumors, thereby optimizing the delivery of the prescribed dose to each part of the tumor while sparing normal tissues.
 
Nicole Denjoy, COCIR Secretary General, says: “Considering that the campaign focus this year  is  ‘We  can.  I  can.’,  COCIR  strongly  supports  the  need  for  everyone  to  access effective,  qualitative  and  affordable  cancer  care,  benefiting  from  promising  innovative technologies.  COCIR is convinced that efforts  to advance cancer research, diagnosis and targeted  therapy  should  be  increased,  and  has  been  striving  to  shape  policy  changes necessary  to  accelerate  increased  survival  rates  and  improvements  in  cancer  patient outcomes.” Nicole Denjoy added “More than 40% of cancer deaths could be prevented by using medical technologies smartly.  Early and accurate diagnosis of cancer is essential in delivering  better  outcomes  for  patients.  It  is  vital  that  patients  have  timely  and affordable access to appropriate diagnostic tests, screening, and treatment technologies”.
 
*COCIR is the European Trade Association representing the medical imaging, health ICT and  electromedical  industries.  Founded  in  1959,  COCIR  is  a  non -profit  association headquartered  in  Brussels  (Belgium)  with  a  China  Desk  based  in  Beijing  since  2007. COCIR  is  unique  as  it  brings  together  the  healthcare,  IT  and  telecommunications industries.