18 Apr “We want you around.”: campaign raises awareness of colorectal cancer prevention and detection
By: Beatriz Pina
Thursday, 14 abril 2022 09:57
“We want you here.” is the new campaign, which brings together entities to raise awareness of the prevention and detection of colorectal cancer, a disease that was diagnosed in more than 10.000 Portuguese and the cause of death for 3.000 people in the country. The initiative, promoted by the Ageas Portugal Group, the Ageas Foundation, Médis and Europacolon Portugal, runs until the 13th of May.
According to data from the Internacional Agency for Research on Cancer, this is the second most common neoplasm in both sexes, with 90% of cases detected from the age of 50 and 85% of cases arise without any family relationship. This type of cancer has a slow and silent, asymptomatic progression, which can often take more than 10 years. However, performing screenings, through fecal occult blood testing, reduces colorectal cancer mortality by approximately 16%.
Being a simple, fast and free process, to carry our the screenings, peple should go to one of the laboratories or collection posts that are part of the campaign, Redes Germano de Sousa and Unilabs, and request a kit for the investigation of fecal occult blood. The collection is done at home by the person himself and must be delivered to the respective collection point, which will later communicate the result. If the result is positive for fecal occult blood, people will be contacted later by Europacolon to find out what steps to take.
After the success of the first initiative, which took place in 2021, and to signal the importance of adopting preventive measures in order to avoid more deaths, the Ageas Portugal Group, Médis and the Ageas Foundation and Europacolon wanted to follow up on this awareness campaing for colorectal cancer – Movimento 50+, whose objective is to promote early diagnosis, refer and accompany people with a positive result or improve the knowledge of the Portuguese population about the disease.
Patrícia Ramalho, responsible for the Movimento 50+ program, reinforces that the main purpose “is to save as many lives as possible” and that, therefore, it is “imperative to carry out this type of campaigns that, on the one hand, aim at the prevention and early detection of one of the deadliest types of cancer and, on the other hand, they seek to increase the population’s knowledge about the disease”.
To mark support for this cause, during the month of April, the new building of the Ageas Portugal Group will symbolically light up in blue – a color associates with this type of cancer – an the campaign with the motto “We want you around”. will be present in radio and digital.
Learn more about the campaign and participating laboratories aqui.