The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Lakeshore Cancer Center, Prof. Chummy Nwogu, on Friday said that Nigeria was still far from where it should be in gathering and managing cancer data through the cancer registries.

Nwogu made this known while speaking on “Epidemiology of Cancer in Nigeria’’, during the hospital’s Second Annual Nursing Conference in Lagos.

NAN reports that the theme of the conference was: “Holistic Nursing in Cancer Care: An Interdisciplinary Approach’’.

Nwogu said that compared to the rising, as well as new cases of cancer being reported, Nigeria did not gather enough data to help in managing the disease.

According to him, following the guidelines of the international recommendations of cancer registry will help countries have a better understanding of the burden of the disease.

He attributed the non-adherence to this to misplaced priority and lack of adequate funding.

“You cannot improve what you cannot measure.

“Every country is supposed to have a national cancer registry. The cancer registry that is supposed to have the information, often times, is not functioning well.

“This is not good enough to capture the magnitude of this disease. It is because we don’t place much priority on it and it is very poorly funded.

“Fortunately in Nigeria a lot of people are making efforts to improve this but we’re still far away from where we need to be.

“Every country is supposed to produce annual reports that will help facilitate research on what is happening. It can help us monitor the effectiveness of our programmes,’’ Nwogu said.

The don, however, decried the lack of awareness of the populace about cancer.

According to him, it is important for people to be aware of cancer, especially as 30 per cent of cancer cases are preventable.

Nwogu said that prevention was still the best way in order to eliminate the exposure that led to cancer.

He advised people to modify their lifestyles, eat healthy and always go for screenings and checkups.

“Education is key. Simple things like having a pap smear can make a huge difference in cervical cancer prevention.

“Also, there are effective vaccines out there, ‘’ Nwogu said. (NAN)