According to the study, cancer is Romania’s second leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases, representing 19% of all deaths. In 2019. 50,324 people died of cancer in Romania. The age-standardized cancer mortality rate was 7 % higher than the EU average in 2019 and has shown very modest progress since 2011 compared to the EU average.

According to the same source, while cancer mortality decreased by 1 % among men and increased by 1 % among women in Romania in 2011-2019, across the EU, it decreased by 10 % among men and by 5 % among women. The difference in overall cancer mortality between Romania and the EU average increased from -1 % to 7 % during the decade because of the modest progress registered in Romania. This particularly relates to higher mortality rates among the 15-64. In 2019, the mortality rate among men aged 15-64 was 64 % higher than the EU average.

Meanwhile, the overall cancer incidence in Romania is below the EU average. According to the European Cancer Information System (ECIS) of the Joint Research Centre, based on incidence trends from pre-pandemic years, around 95 000 new cancer cases were expected in Romania in 2020. Age-standardized incidence rates for all cancers were expected to be 10% lower for men and 16 % lower for women than the EU averages. Among women, cervical cancer is the third most common, after breast and colorectal cancer, which differs from the pattern across the EU.

The study was published in February in the context of World Cancer Day, February 4th. World Cancer Day is an international day marked on 4 February to raise cancer awareness and encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment. The Union leads World Cancer Day for International Cancer Control to support the goals of the World Cancer Declaration from 2008.

Cancer treatment app to help doctors and patients in Romania: Docviser

The cancer mortality rate in Romania made companies look for solutions to help doctors save lives. One of these is MCRO, a company in Cluj Napoca that launched Docviser, the first intelligent oncological app. This is an app that helps doctors optimize and monitor the efficiency of the oncological treatment, also helping them to understand the best practices of other clinics.

The entire process happens in real-time for everyone, in full transparency. Doctors can oversee everything, the entire flow from prescription to administering the treatment in real-time. That’s the main feature of Docviser. Other features will include the Tumour Board for the doctors to make the best decision for their patients. They have the option to join offline and meet in the same room and online in a Google meet-like conference room adapted for them to be able to discuss specific case studies, work on a resolution and add anything relevant to them that would make everyone take the best decision. Besides that, we also offer powerful clinic reports that help clinics logistically organize their staff better and be able to determine the exact quantity of drugs to be administered in the following months based on the previous month’s records.

Alex Lazar, CEO of MCRO, on Docviser’s features

Please check the full interview we had in exclusivity with Alex Lazar on what Docviser can do for doctors and oncological patients.

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Starting this year, the National Day of Cancer Survivors is celebrated on the first Sunday of June. This year, 2022, Cancer Survivors Day is marked on Sunday, June 5.

The initiative to establish National Cancer Survivors Day is a message of hope for those who, unfortunately, find that they have this diagnosis. The power of the example of those who have overcome the disease can have a mobilizing and encouraging effect at the same time. The confidence that you, too, can pass such a trial means that you have paved the way for healing with the valuable support of doctors and access to treatments. In all this effort, however, the role of the authorities and the entire health system is equally important both during the treatment period and after healing.

Romanian PM, Nicolae Ciuca, on the National Day of Cancer Survivors

Unfortunately, Romania isn’t one of the top countries in Europe for cancer treatment. Also, the authorities’ decision, which preferred to allot all the resources to treat Covid-19 patients during the last two years, left the cancer patients unattended by their doctors. Postponed surgical operations, closed hospitals, the lack of medicines to cure or alleviate the symptoms, and madness during the pandemic created a deep crisis for cancer patients.

As Romania has no clear strategy, other countries fill this gap and offer Romanians performant oncological treatment. The Oncological Clinic from Anadolu, Turkey, has recently communicated it has treated more than 90,000 Romanians, and this number is increasing. In fact, Romanians are the most numerous nations to be treated at this clinic, and this tells a lot about the level of treatment in Romania compared to Turkey. Other countries, such as Austria, are also preferred destinations for Romanians to treat cancer.

In Romania, there are registered half a million cancer patients at any given moment. This figure is constantly increasing, year after year. Out of these patients, almost 60,000 die in a year. In other words, 1 in 20 Romanians is diagnosed with cancer, and more than 1 in 10 of those diagnosed die every year. These are terrible statistics, and Romania has to wake up and do a lot more than observing the National Days related to cancer or cancer survivors.

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Oncological diseases remain among the leading health problems of Romanians, being the reason for death for thousands of Romanians with oncologic conditions. Globally, cancer kills at least 10 million people annually, according to data compiled by the World Organization, and Romania is one of the worst affected countries in Europe.

Pollution, stress, chaotic lifestyle and the quality of the food Romanians put on the table are among the key factors contributing to the thousands of new cancer cases discovered each year in Romania.

How many people die of cancer in Romania?

According to the National Institute for Public Health (INSP), 60,000 patients die annually in Romania due to oncologic affections. Around 160 per day. A lot more than the deaths caused by any other virus, right? If somebody considered presenting the numbers daily on all the TV stations, like now with the new coronavirus, we would realize the tragedy around this affection. In other words, we need one February 4 on each and single day to be aware of this.

Tragically, many people died of cancer during the pandemic in Romania because they did not detect the disease in time or could not be treated. After all, the hospitals in the country could not cope with Covid-19 patients. This is often not present, but we should speak bluntly about what is happening and why.

Romanians seek treatment abroad

Due to poor medical conditions in their country and the restrictions in accessing medical treatment during the Covid-19 pandemic, a large percentage of Romanias are choosing to treat their oncologic conditions abroad.

One of the many reasons Romanians seek clinics abroad is that they are not satisfied with the Romanian medical system, and we talk here about the public hospitals. More than that, whenever patients are diagnosed with cancer in Romania, they would immediately seek a second oncological opinion. Therefore, the Austrian or the Turkish clinics seem to be a good choice for the Romanians.

One of the clinics that Romanians use is Anadolu Medical Center. This clinic treats patients in a complex and modern way, providing medical services at an international standard to improve the quality of life. In 2020, according to Anadolu Medical Center, 19% of all foreign patients were Romanian, the highest percentage of patients of other nationalities than Turkish treated for the oncological disease.

Romanian cancer patients choose oncologic clinics abroad, such as Anadolu Medical Center in Turkey or AKH in Austria, because of the doctors’ professionalism, the way patients are welcomed and treated at the centre, and the cutting-edge cancer treatment technologies used. Technologies such as Cyberknife M6, which provides millimetre accuracy in irradiation, or Da Vinci, the world’s most advanced robotic surgery system, are efficient and non-invasive. Why should the cancer patients go for any other classic option? They won’t, and these are the reasons for the success of the foreign oncological clinics.

Statistics

Statistics show that in both sexes, the types of cancer that cause the most deaths are lung cancer (18%), followed by colorectal cancer (9.4%), liver cancer (8.3%), stomach cancer (7%) and breast cancer (6.9%).

Romanians benefited from 28% of the total of chemotherapy treatments applied at Anadolu Medical Center to foreign patients in 2020. Among the types of cancer that the clinic specialists treated among Romanian patients are breast cancer, lung cancer, cervical cancer and breast cancer, prostate, which are among the most common types of cancer in Romania.

If 142 patients died of oncological pathology every day before (Global Cancer Observatory 2018), this figure has now increased. Who is to blame for this situation? The issue of cancer mortality was silenced in the pandemic years, but it is a topic that should raise awareness.

And, one final thought here: out of all those Romanians diagnosed with cancer, how many can afford treatment abroad? Why don’t they have medical options in the country, at the same level as they have abroad, to choose from? The very few private oncological clinics in Romania barely cope with the number of patients seeking to be cured. In this equation, the state hospitals don’t even bother to compete, as they can’t possibly offer what the private clinics do.

How long will it take the Romanian state to do something for the cancer patients and offer proper treatment in the country, in modern state hospitals, within the medical insurance they pay?

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