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What is cancer?
Cancer is a disease that occurs when changes in a group of normal cells in the body lead to uncontrolled, abnormal growth that results in a growth called a tumor; this applies to all cancers except leukemia (blood cancer). Untreated tumors can grow and spread to surrounding healthy tissue or to other parts of the body via the blood flow and lymphatic system. They can affect the digestive, nervous and circulatory systems or release hormones that can impair bodily functions.
Why is there a special Cancer Day?
The goal of the day is to promote research, prevent cancer, improve patient care, create awareness and mobilize the global community to make progress against cancer. By creating global awareness, improving knowledge and catalyzing individual, collective and governmental action, people work together in support of World Cancer Day to reimagine the world so that everyone has access to the prevention, treatment and care they need for cancer.
The current three-year World Cancer Day campaign is about breaking down the barriers that prevent people around the world from getting the cancer treatment they need. The first year (2022 ) of the 'Closing the Gaps' campaign focused on understanding and recognizing cancer inequalities around the world and their impact on public health. The second year of the campaign (2023 ) is about bringing together the voices of friends, family members, colleagues and communities to collectively call for change and concrete action. The third campaign year (2024) aims to raise awareness at the highest level and directly address those in power. Political executives should understand that the public demands the prioritization of the cancer challenge, the development of innovative strategies and an equitable use of resources. Health inequities must be addressed to ensure that all people have access to quality health services when needed.
What types of cancer are treated at the Clinical Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Infectious Diseases and Endocrinology?
The Clinical Department's range of services includes the treatment of malignant tumors of the pancreas, liver and bile ducts (including gallbladder tumors), as well as stomach and intestinal tumors and neuroendocrine neoplasia. Substantial progress has been made in the treatment of all of these tumor diseases in recent years. Our aim is to develop modern and individualized treatment concepts for our patients. To this end, we continuously review the results of international studies so that we can quickly integrate useful approaches into our treatment concepts. Our outpatient clinic also has an active portfolio of selected therapy studies, through which we can provide patients with access to selected therapeutic approaches that we consider to be oncologically meaningful and forward-looking.
At the heart of modern oncological therapy development is the interdisciplinary exchange in the context of tumor conferences - together with representatives of visceral surgery, radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, (interventional) radiology as well as pathology and human genetics, we consistently discuss every patient with gastrointestinal tumor disease when diagnostic or therapeutic decisions need to be made in order to review therapy results or if a change of therapy modality is being considered. These twice-weekly conferences are supplemented by the bi-weekly molecular tumour board, in which the results of complex genetic diagnostics are discussed separately and possible therapeutic consequences in terms of personalized oncology are determined.
Treatment recommendations are made on the basis of the tumor conferences and, if necessary, inpatient admission is planned or contact is made with another specialist department.
For patients receiving outpatient infusion therapy (chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapies), we have 10 therapy places available on the premises of our outpatient clinic. Here you will be cared for by our dedicated, oncologically trained nursing staff. Our patients are supported by our colleagues in psycho-oncology, nutritional medicine and sports medicine.
The German Cancer Society provides information on individual types of cancer.
Free information material is available from German Cancer Aid.
The press release of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) can be found here.