JEDDAH, 30 April 2007 — A new cancer awareness unit at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital (KFSH) is to be announced tomorrow evening during an open discussion event for cancer patients and their families, which is to be held at the Jeddah Inter.Continental hotel.
The new unit is intended to provide information about diet, causes of cancer and methods of prevention. The Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, which is a co-organizer of the event, is also to announce a SR100,000 award to the best cancer related research.
Princess Aliaa bint Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Saud is supporting the research award program and will be inaugurating tomorrow’s event. Dr. Izzuddin Ibrahim, a tumor specialist and medical director at KFSH, said that the public should be aware of cancer and its causes in order to gain a better understanding in dealing with the disease. “The new unit aims to facilitate all cancer-related information to the general public,” he said.
He noted that even with the availability of medical information on the Internet, people are still unable to access the information. He added that according to a study only 13 percent of Internet users surf the Net for medical-related sites.
He attributed the problem to a lack of knowledge about where to search and barriers relating to language since most medical sites are displayed in English.
Dr. Yassir Bahadir, head of the organizing committee for the event, said that the aim of the open discussion was to disseminate information to cancer patients and their families on how to deal with the disease.
