Over 8,600 cancer diagnoses every year in Friuli Venezia Giulia

TRIESTE We get sick, but we also recover from cancer. More and more with the use of regional screening. The diagnoses in Friuli Venezia Giulia every year are over 8,600, with a higher incidence for men (4,502, i.e. 676 per 100,000 inhabitants) than for women (4,100, 510 per 100,000). Data contained in the report presented by the deputy governor with responsibility for Health Riccardo Riccardi and which refer to the period 2014-17. Looking at the 2017-18 biennium only, as updated by the Fvg Cancer Registry, the epidemiological situation in the region is comparable to that recorded in the other areas of Northern Italy, with a lower incidence for men and the same for women.

For both sexes, the median age at diagnosis is 70 years, with about 40 new cases per year between children (0-14) and adolescents (15-19). Breast cancer remains by far the most frequent in women, with about 1,300 new cases per year, equal to 31.7% of all female cancers and an incidence rate of 168.3 cases per year per 100,000, slightly higher than that recorded in the other areas of Northern Italy (161.8).

With almost 1,000 new cases per year, prostate cancer remains the most frequent neoplasm in men in the region, equal to 21% of all male cancers, with an incidence rate of 140.2 cases per 100,000 per year, similar the national average and lower than the incidence of the same period in the other regions of Northern Italy (156). Fundamental, Riccardi underlines, prevention and strengthening of dedicated services: «It is necessary to inform even more and better to reach the widest audience of citizens through every useful tool to make people understand the importance of early diagnosis. I understand the fears in this emergency period that is not over but people have to visit with confidence ».

Intra-regional comparisons show a particularly high incidence in men residing in the province of Gorizia (719 cases / 100,000) and in Trieste women (547 / 100,000), but between 2010 and 2017 in the regional territory the incidence decreased by 2, 8% per year for men and 1.1% for women. Good news then comes from the statistical analysis of survival for all tumor sites (excluding non-melanoma skin cancers) diagnosed from 1995 to 2013 with assessment of the state of life to 2018: after 5 years from the diagnosis 60% of men were alive (against a national average of 54%) and 63% of women (equal to the Italian average), a probability that rose to 80% among men and to 81% among women who had passed the first year of illness. As of 2018, informs the director of the Soc of Oncological Epidemiology of the Cro di Aviano and head of the Diego Serraino Registry, “there are 79,776 people living after a diagnosis of cancer in Fvg and 41.6%, 10 years after the diagnosis, he is considered cured “. –

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