Labels on men’s and women’s underwear with anti-cancer prevention messages: from breast self-examination, to be affixed to bras, to the recommendation, on boxers and briefs, to check for any lumps or swelling in the testicles. It is the project launched by the NHS, the English health service, in collaboration with a chain of shops, which is also very popular with Italian oncologists: “It is an excellent initiative. Any stimulus to primary prevention is welcome, because it is always talked about but in reality self-examination is not so widespread, especially among males, for whom the important check during the military visit with compulsory military service also failed”, says Saverio Cinieri, president of Aiom, to Adnkronos Salute association of Italian oncologists. For this reason “like Aiom we are ready to launch a similar initiative and welcome companies willing to carry it out on their undergarments”.
“Women – underlines Cinieri – are more sensitive and predisposed than males to checks and self-examination, while boys don’t go to the family doctor, they don’t self-examine, and today we notice an increase in testicular tumors often due to causes that could be avoided. Unfortunately, in all Western countries the increase in breast and testicular cancers is substantially on the increase. And in Italy, especially in the South, the rate of adherence to screening programs is very low, therefore they must be intensified. And we keep in mind – he observes – that all the oncological prevention programs now contemplated in the Lea concern, coincidentally, the apparatus ‘contained’ in the briefs”.
The oncologist then recalls that “in Italy a bra manufacturer had in the past carried out an advertising campaign dedicated to women undergoing mastectomy, dedicating a line of bras to them, which had advertising references to prevention”. In this case, with the ‘anti-cancer’ labels “we are sending a message to everyone, males and females of all ages, that by reading them they will be urged to control themselves”, he concludes.
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