In the USSR, much earlier than in the Western countries, a direction of medicine, focused on the study of oncology, arose, and a huge network of dispensaries appeared. Social anthropologist, researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Mokhov told about this in his publication on Wednesday, March 31.
“Approximately twenty years since 1950 can be regarded as the dawn of Soviet oncology. Western colleagues then looked at what was happening in the USSR as something fantastic. <...> The Soviet Union immediately after the war built a fantastic diagnostic network of oncological dispensaries. It has grown like a spider’s web throughout the country, “he said in an interview with Lente.ru.
The expert added that such things were not done in the world due to the high cost. At the same time, as the scientist noted, soon oncological care, tuned to prevention and mass medical examinations, quickly became outdated.
“When in the seventies, under the influence of the emergence of new diagnostic methods – genetic tests, tomographs, the development of medical technologies – the world oncology began to change dramatically, the Soviet one was no longer able to reorganize. Because the mass popular prophylactic system is not able to turn into a high-tech one, tailored to the personal needs of each patient. Therefore, in the 1980s, the Soviet oncological service looks already absolutely archaic, and the attitude towards it is changing in the world, ”concluded Mokhov.
On March 1, it was reported that scientists from the Research Institute of Oncology of the Tomsk National Research Medical Center (NRMC) successfully applied a new method of treating breast cancer, thanks to which the development of metastases does not occur in 93% of cases.
Earlier in February, Canadian scientists used a series of experiments to figure out how creating “super soldiers” from white blood cells could help fight cancer. Experts have described a DNA-modifying epigenetic therapy that transforms immune T cells. They found that this biological compound enhances their ability to kill cancer cells.