A team from the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and the IARC Caribbean Cancer Registry Hub recently visited Saint Lucia to provide technical guidance and conduct site assessments to support the implementation of a population-based cancer registry in country. The visit provided an opportunity for the IARC Caribbean Cancer Registry Hub team to capture and evaluate the status of cancer registration processes such as screening, diagnosis, treatment, management and death and also to provide the necessary recommendations for the cancer registry.

Stakeholders including the staff from the Epidemiology Unit within the Ministry of Health, the public and private labs, civil society organisations, medical practitioners and hospitals to name a few also met with the team from CARPHA to gain a better understanding of the population-based cancer registry and their role in this process.

Given the growing public health burden of non-communicable diseases NCDs such as cancer, the National Epidemiologist Dr. Michelle Francois stated that the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Nutrition recognizes the need to implement a cancer registry which will help to advance cancer control through several targeted programmes. “Over the last few years, the Ministry of Health through the Epidemiology Unit has made considerable strides in terms of data capture and management for cancer. Cancer is currently the number one case of deaths in Saint Lucia and so we recognize the need to strengthen our surveillance as it pertains to this disease. With this visit from the Caribbean Public Health Agency, we are hoping to be able to identify any challenges, any gaps we may have, with the aim of improving our data capture, our data analysis to be able to adequately guide policies and programmes as it pertains to cancer in Saint Lucia.”

CARPHA’s Head of Chronic Disease and Injuries Department and who is also Principal Investigator of the IARC Caribbean Cancer Registry Hub, Dr. Heather Armstrong spoke on the use of population-based cancer registry to collect data, track cancer burdens and improve patient care. “This is the gold standard for a country to understand what is their cancer burden. It also allows them to identify trends in terms of who are the persons within the population, the gender groups, the age groups that are being impacted by cancer and of course, if you understand who is being impacted, how they are being impacted and if the treatment processes that are available are actually helping to address cancer within the country, then you are able to make evidence-informed decisions which will better improve your ability to address the issue of cancer. As you know within the region, cancer is the second leading cause of deaths and with better information then improve your overall response.”