Editor's Word

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to announce the 3rd Combined Gulf Cancer Conference, Quality Care: New Horizons which will be held in the Kingdom of Bahrain on 7-9 December 2019. This is the continuation of the previous two “Combined Gulf Cancer Conferences” held in Kuwait on 2017 and Riyadh on 2018. These series of conferences are the result of the partnership between the Gulf Federation for Cancer Control, the Gulf Health Council, and the Gulf Center for Cancer Control and Prevention.

Another conference which will be held on 16-18 November 2019 in Kuwait is The Management of Breast & Colorectal Cancer, Kuwait Conference: Recent Updates. We are looking forward to the participation of oncologists, physicists, medical specialists, health and social workers and other medical practitioners in the GCC and the Arab region who to want to share and collaborate their work with their colleagues. We are hoping that both conferences will be a success and many will attend and participate in these very interesting forums.

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A cooperation agreement between the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) and the Gulf Federation for Cancer Control (GFFCC) was held in a meeting in Milan, Italy last 28 April 2019. This cooperation would enhance the opportunities of GFFCC member associations, particularly the oncologists, to participate in clinical research exchanges and encourage them to become ESTRO members. ESTRO on the other hand would participate in annual gulf conferences by providing lectures, share experiences and provide technical support to physicists like calibration of medical equipment, etc. This new opportunity would expand the horizons and enhance the skills and knowledge of our fellow oncologists in the gulf region.

I had a meeting with Professor Hisham Najmi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Morocco while on a visit to Kuwait in April 2019. In this meeting, I discussed the agenda of our visit to Morocco in February 2019 which was composed of the GCC delegation headed by Mr. Mohsen Mubarak Al Dosari, Director of the Health Department of the General Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Dr. Ali Al Zahrani, Executive Director of the Gulf Center for Cancer Control & Prevention (GCCCP), Mr. Abdul Aziz Al Hamoud, Head of Health Affairs Department, Department of Health, General Secretariat of the GCC, and myself as Secretary General of the GFFCC and a member of the Advisory Council of the GCCCP. The highlights of our discussion include the approval of the Moroccan Ministry of Health as a member-observer of the Advisory Council of the GCCC; the scheduled visit of the Awareness Without Borders medical mission on October 2020; the exchange of scientific visits, joint research on NCDs and networking of doctors in the gulf states and Morocco. This is good news and we welcome the Kingdom of Morocco in our fight against cancer in the whole Arab region!