It is cancer, and not only war, incidents or poverty, that threatens the Arabs from extinction. The phosphorus cluster bombs used by the US in its war on Iraq has increased the rates of blood cancer four times, chairman of the Association of Cancer Physicians Sami al-Khatib said.
The rate of cancer in Egypt amounts to 150 cases out of 100,000 people. This means that there are 70,000 cancer patients a year. The entire Arab region suffers a big and complicated problem, as it is still importing therapeutic information and protocols from the West and applies them without studying them, particularly with regard to tumors. Unfortunately, cancer is discovered too late in the Arab region, so the recovery rate is very low, al-Khatib said, pointing out that this was due to lack of awareness among the Arabs.
There are some 20 types of tumors, the most serious of which are blood, liver, and breast cancers, oncologist Mohamed Fouda said. In spite of scientific advances in this area, the full recovery rate does not exceed 30%. The most widespread cases of cancer in Egypt affect the breast, the liver and the bladder, he added.
