• Submitted by: Camila
• Health and Medicine
• 11 / 20 / 2014

---

Havana Oncology Congress 2014 was inaugurated today at the Conventions Palace in Havana, attended by leading researchers, doctors and other specialists from Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The Cuban Society of Oncology, Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine and the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology of Cuba announces the event, which will feature about 150 specialists from Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, China, USA, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica , Guatemala, among other countries, as well as 250 Cubans.

Dr. Jorge Juan Marinello, president of the organizing committee of the congress and the Cuban Society of Clinical Oncology, said cancer is currently the leading cause of death in Cuba, and therefore their main health problem.

Marinello said the Cuban Ministry of Public Health gives high priority to the scientific development of its specialists, and oncological congresses are finest work of the Cuban Society of Oncology and the promotion of scientific knowledge in this field.

The Center of Molecular Immunology in Havana have several therapeutic vaccines of proven efficiency in certain types of tumors, including lung, head and neck, and some in brain.

Jorge Luis Garcia Soriano, chairman of the scientific committee, noted that this year have been diagnosed in Cuba about 40 thousand new cases which puts the country between the incidence rates of the fastest growing in Latin America.

The scientific program of the event focuses on advances in oncology and new diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities, as well as the latest research on cancer.

The main topics are pre-clinical and clinical evaluation of new drugs, biomarkers and personalized oncology, immunotherapy, epidemiology and records, palliative care patients, prevention and control of cancer, psycho-oncology and oncology nursing.

Other topics are supportive care and rehabilitation techniques, advances in radiotherapy and nuclear medicine, diagnosis and treatment of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies and childhood tumors.