Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Radiation Oncology in Colombia: An Opportunity for Improvement in the Postconflict Era

2021; Elsevier BV; Volume: 109; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.ijrobp.2020.12.006

1879-355X

María Caicedo-Martínez, Benjamin Li, Alejandro González-Motta, Óscar Gamboa, Iván Bobadilla, Carolina Wiesner, Raúl Murillo,

Economic and Financial Impacts of Cancer

Colombia is a South American country with a population of approximately 50 million inhabitants. 1 National Administrative Department of StatisticsNational Population and Housing Census [Internet]. 2018https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/estadisticas-por-tema/demografia-y-poblacion/censo-nacional-de-poblacion-y-vivenda-2018/cuantos-somosDate accessed: December 21, 2020 Google Scholar Since 1964, the country has endured armed conflict against multiple guerillas. In 2016, the country signed a historic peace treaty with the most dominant guerillas, known as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). However, the impact of more than 5 decades of conflict and the ongoing war with other armed groups has had a detrimental effect on sociocultural, economic, and health care areas that affect different populations in the country. Colombia is divided into 4 major demographic regions: Andean, Caribbean, Pacific, and Amazonian/Orinoquia, representing 56.0%, 21.2%, 17.3%, and 5.4%, respectively, of the Colombian population. 1 National Administrative Department of StatisticsNational Population and Housing Census [Internet]. 2018https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/estadisticas-por-tema/demografia-y-poblacion/censo-nacional-de-poblacion-y-vivenda-2018/cuantos-somosDate accessed: December 21, 2020 Google Scholar The capital city of Bogotá (population 7,181,469) is located in the Andean region and home to the Colombian National Cancer Institute, the first radium center in Latin America (Fig. 1). Population and health care are unequally distributed throughout the country, and regions such as the Amazonian/Orinoquia and Pacific regions, those heavily affected by the internal conflict, have notably precarious health care conditions. 2 Ministry of Health and Social ProtectionHealth Situation Analysis. Imprenta Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, DC2019 Google Scholar ,3 National Institute of Health. National Health ObservatoryConsequences of the Armed Conflict in Health in Colombia. Ninth Technical Report. 2017 Google Scholar