Briefing

On March 10, 2015 a joint briefing by Orest Sereda, the Deputy Head of the Health care Department of Lviv Oblast State Administration, Igor Kovalchuk, Head physician in the State Cancer Treatment and Diagnostics Centre for the Lviv oblast, Orest Tril, Deputy Head physician of the medical unit in the State Cancer Treatment and Diagnostics Centre for the Lviv oblast, was held concerning the approval of the decision by the Board of Directors of the World Bank in Washington D.C. to grant a loan of $214.73 million USD to Ukraine for the project "Serving People, Improving Health".

Within the subproject "Oncological prevention and effective anti-cancer technologies implementation" the oblast receives 10.150 million U.S.D. The project objective in the Lviv oblast is the introduction of modern infrastructure of early diagnosis and cancer prevention among the female population, improvement of the quality of diagnosis and enhancement of the standards of oncological treatment that will improve the efficiency of the health care system towards combatting cancer. O. Sereda reported on the progress of the project towards implementation of screening, competitive selection and development of the "Oncology prevention" Project from 4 million U.S.D. to 10.150 million U.S.D. The relevance of the oncology focus selection for the subproject in the Lviv oblast was justified by an increase of morbidity and extreme social relevance of combatting oncological diseases in the Lviv oblast. It is oncological pathology in young women that leades in the structure of mortality in the oblast. The introduction of a modern system of monitoring of the female population and invitations to pass free screening procedure will have a positive impetus on early detection of tumours in the female population: for the women from the Lviv oblast this means a free examination at the European level, for experts this presupposes a modern level of monitoring and systematic organization of screening at the population level. I. Kovalchuk stressed the importance of early detection, of the effective treatment and of the favourable projection regarding tumours of the cervix and breast. Nowadays, there is cytological screening of the female population developed in the Lviv oblast, with the level of diagnosis of cervical cancer at 0 stage (cancer in situ) bring almost the highest in Ukraine. The coverage of cytological screening, however, currently depends on the diligence and consistency in the work of gynaecological services in the districts and cities of the oblast, with monitoring of such process continuing to grow in complexity due to hardcopy format documentation. The idea of the modern screening monitoring is underpinned by the introduction of an electronic registry of the female population and by rapid exchange of data, as well as by simplificarion of reports generation through the use of modern software of this registry. O. Tril stresses the importance of the introduction of modern and proven in the Western world screening technologies - cytological and mammographic for the project "Oncology prevention". The level of diagnostics using population screening far outstrips any techniques for early diagnosis of cancer available for now in the oblast. This will suffieciently contribute to reducing injuries occuring upon surgeries and to reducing disabilities of women. Reducing the negligence of primary cancer incidences of screening locations is the most effective strategy towards increasing the life expectancy of cancer patients. It is presupposed that the antenatal clinics will be provided with computer hardware for maintaining electronic registry of the female population in order to improve the process of record keeping of the cancer screening results, and to exchange data with cytology laboratories and oblast-level offices for cervical pathology. For obtaining cytological smears it is planned to provide all districts and cities of the oblast with the sets for taking cytological smears. It is planned to allocate funds for  the development of a computerized registry of the female population, digital mammography devices, colposcopes, ultrasound devices, sets for taking smears for cytology screening for the multi-district screening centres (in Drohobych, Chervonograd, Sambir). In order to improve diagnostics and the effectiveness of cancer treatment it is planned to allocate funds for upgrading equipment of the Lviv Cancer Treatment and Diagnostics Centre, with installation of diagnostic equipment of a new generation (modern MRI device, multi-stage CT device, mammography device with  3 D-tomosynthesis, scintigraphy equipment SPECT-CT, ultrasound systems for diagnostics, and introduced technology of liquid cytology). It is planned to provide training sessions for experts regarding modern technologies for diagnostics and treatment of cancer. In order to co-finance the project by the local government within 10%, the Oblast program "Combatting cancer in the Lviv oblast" has been adopted and approved at the session of the Lviv oblast council. The size of the oblast program funding envisaged is 10% of the share of investments of the World Bank for the project "Oncology prevention" and amounts to 10.55 million U.S.D. Already in 2014 the funds were allocated from the oblast budget for the procurement of equipment, chemo medicine and and mammography films for the Cancer Treatment Centre and which amounted to $ 3,325,000 U.S.D. To find more information on the World Bank's Project "IServing People, Improving health" please follow our upcoming publications.