The Ministry of Health is working assiduously to improve the time taken to diagnose cancer and a major move this year will be that of telepathology which will allow remote visualizing of images on a video monitor rather than viewing a specimen through a microscope.
Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony at the ministry’s year-end press conference relayed that they had been able to upgrade the country’s cancer registry where “we now have more accurate data and we have been tracking and trying to get and improve the data collection.”
He said that in 2023 they were able to achieve a turnaround time as it relates to diagnostics. “In the past it used to be that in some cases when we take a biopsy it probably takes about three months sometimes longer for people to get back the results” leaving patients feeling anxious as they await the results.
While at the Georgetown Public Hospital they have been able to reduce the timeframe to within a week, in order to improve the time, they are working to introduce telepathology in the first quarter of this year.
He explained that they have been working with Mount Sinai Health System of New York on this project, adding that they have already procured the needed equipment to do telepathology and have started renovation on the Georgetown Public Hospital to accommodate the new lab “and once that is completed we will install the equipment.”
Anthony said, “We’ve already trained a staff at the hospital to be able to do telepathology and they would be directly linked to the Mount Sinai lab.”
According to him, this will allow high-resolution images to be taken of the samples and sent to a pathologist for a diagnosis. “So this a service that we will introduce starting from early (this) year because we have all the elements in place it’s just starting the service so that would also improve the turnaround time in terms of diagnosing cancer patients.”
Touching on statistics, Anthony said that breast cancer remains the number one diagnosed cancer in Guyana with 161 women being diagnosed in 2023 which is 17% of the total types of cancer diagnosed for the year. “So this is something we have to work more on in terms of reducing this burden and one way of doing that we have to encourage people to get screened and get screened early.
“Our approach to this now is getting people to come and do mammograms so persons 40 years and older should come and get a mammogram and if you have a family risk then between 30-40 years then you should at least consider doing mammograms”, he advised.
According to him, they are also working on genetic screening which will be introduced “down the road.”
He stressed that breast cancer remains a challenge as well, and as such there must be a collaborative effort to get more people educated and screened as early detection will result in better outcomes for patients.
“We have one mammogram machine at the Georgetown Hospital and we have been working with the IEA to get another three mammogram machines and hopefully as soon as they send them in we have identified three hospitals where we will be putting these mammograms.”
The machines are expected to be placed at the New Amsterdam. Linden and West Demerara hospitals.
Meanwhile, according to Anthony, the second most prevalent cancer is cervical cancer with 102 people being diagnosed last year, amounting to 11% of the cancers diagnosed for the year.
He stressed, that there is a very “cheap and effective method” in preventing cervical cancer and that is HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccinations. However, “unfortunately a lot of people are not taking the HPV vaccines and the new guidelines from CDC is …from 9 – 15 years of age you can now get a single dose HPV vaccine … These are new guidelines, 16 years and older you can get two doses at a six-month interval and that will help to prevent cervical cancer.”
Anthony stressed, that HPV vaccines are available and that they are hoping to give it to more “people so that they can benefit and we can help to prevent cervical cancer.”
During his press conference, he pressed for a collaborative effort with the media to get the information to the population.
Additionally, other systems in place to mitigate against cervical cancer include carrying out more “VIAs, (Visual inspections with acetic acid) to do more pap smears and we’ve introduced HPV testing so all three would help us to detect abnormal cells.”
He said that once abnormal cells are detected then cryotherapy equipment which has been distributed can be used by health workers “on these abnormal cells”, stressing that this is “something that is ongoing and we are expanding these programmes.”
In terms of cancer in men, there has been an increase in prostate cancer with 107 men being diagnosed accounting for another 11% detected in 2023. He said that this year they will be launching a programme on prostate cancer as it is an area where early detection must be done and can assist in mitigation.
