Brazil extends cancer network
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Maceio, the capital of the Brazilian state of Alagoas, is to get a high-technology oncology centre, for which the government has pledged R$2.4 million (US$1 million), under the national cancer care expansion programme, Expande. The Cacon centre, based at the Professor Alberto Antunes university hospital, will be equipped to provide diagnostics, clinical and surgical oncology, radiotherapy, haemotherapy and rehabilitation, among others, under the national health system (SUS). When it opens in September 2002, it will have a capacity to treat around 715,000 patients. Eventually, it aims to cover the cancer care needs of half of the state's population, compared with some 22% of the population at present.