Lisa A. Lacasse: We Must Accelerate Access to Cancer Screening and Early Detection
Lisa A. Lacasse, President of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), shared a post on LinkedIn:
“I’m inspired by the critical conversations that took place this week at the National Forum on the Future of Health Care. Accelerating progress in cancer early detection and prevention is not only possible, it’s necessary. And the time to act is now. We have to change the status quo for caner patients, survivors and their families. The challenge is great as it relates to critical public policy interventions, but we continue to be up for this fight, together.
We can’t continue business as usual if we want to increase the number of people nationwide who can detect their cancer early. There is no question: cancer screening and early detection saves lives by detecting cancer before symptoms appear, when treatment is more effective and more affordable. According to research recently published by the American Cancer Society, Cancer prevention and screening is estimated to have averted 4.75 million deaths from breast, cervical, prostate, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers alone between 1970 and 2020.
And while we celebrate these wins, there is much more work to do. Screening tests only exist for 5 cancer sites and the uptake of these screening tests is still too low. What’s more: there are serious disparities between communities, leading to unequal and unnecessary burdens of cancer. We are committed to shifting the status quo. More access to screening must become a reality. We must eliminate barriers to screening, care and to innovation to save more lives. I’m grateful to the advocates and cancer survivors who joined us to explore these issues. Your willingness to engage in open, solution-focused dialogue gives me hope for what we can accomplish together.
Thank you to everyone who made this Forum a success including our phenomenal volunteers who shared their cancer stories, Russell Wright, Kathy Ottele, Andrea Hasley and expert speakers and panelists:
Stan Lapidus, Dr. Carmen Guerra, Priti Bandi, Durado Brooks, Chyke Doubeni, Philipp Graner, Rodney Gillespie, Courtney Bugler, Tracie Lewis, Dawn Mattoon, Sarah C Nosal, Arif Kamal and Ramona Burress, Kristin Olson, Jenn Higgins, James Mathews, Molly Guthrie, Erin P..
A big thank you to our sponsors for making it possible!
Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech, GRAIL, Guardant Health, Merck, Novartis, PhRMA, Sanofi, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, Exact Sciences, Genmab, Ipsen, Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Pfizer, Takeda, AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo US, Geneoscopy, Quest Diagnostics, Roche, S32, and Siemens Healthineers
And to our outstanding ACS CAN team working behind the scenes to make this event so successful, I’m immensely grateful for you.”
More posts featuring Lisa A. Lacasse.
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Challenging the Status Quo in Colorectal Cancer 2024
December 6-8, 2024
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ESMO 2024 Congress
September 13-17, 2024
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ASCO Annual Meeting
May 30 - June 4, 2024
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Yvonne Award 2024
May 31, 2024
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OncoThon 2024, Online
Feb. 15, 2024
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Global Summit on War & Cancer 2023, Online
Dec. 14-16, 2023