THE INTERNET needs to be exploited more in the fight against cancer, the head of the State’s control programme, Prof Tom Keane, said yesterday.
Speaking at a global cancer summit in Dublin, where delegates suggested greater use of social networking sites and other technologies to get messages across to more people around risk factors for cancer, Prof Keane said he had not given much thought to how this might be done in this country, but it was something that needed to be looked at. “It is obviously an opportunity that needs to be exploited,” he said.
Facebook and Twitter may be of limited use, he said, as these would only reach a certain type of audience of mainly young people.
“I think there is ample opportunity for the development of what I call more personalised technologies for cancer support groups . . . it’s a potential opportunity for reaching out to new audiences . . . this may be particularly important I think in getting messages out around prevention, around tobacco control, around managing risk factors for cancer development, around sun exposure and things like that,” he added.
An estimated 12.9 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed around the world this year, with more than 20,000 in Ireland.
Meanwhile, Prof Keane, whose two-year term on the national cancer control programme is due to end later this year, hinted he would consider staying on although he said he was on a secondment from Canada for just two years.
“I have a passionate desire to see the cancer control programme reach its completion. It was never intended that I would complete the whole thing in the first two years. The intention was to get it up and running, to develop momentum such that we would be able to recruit an international expert to take on the job,” he said.
He reiterated that many cancer patients, even those who have been cured, were overly dependant on the Irish hospital system. They should be discharged to their GPs for aftercare, he said. But he acknowledged many feared if they left hospital they would be unable to get in again if or when they needed to.
“The first thing we have to do for patients . . . is promise them that once they’ve left the cancer centre and gone back out into their community that they will be able to come back . . . and they can come back in quickly,” he said.