Daily Times

The 22nd Shaukat Khanum Cancer Symposium concluded on Sunday, November 5, 2023. This largest oncology meeting of Pakistan was attended by over 2,000 people and included talks by international and national speakers from 12 different countries. The topics included breast cancer, oncological nursing, paediatric oncology, pathology, palliative medicine, anaesthesia & pain medicine, oncological pharmacy, infectious diseases in cancer, bone marrow transplant, haematological malignancies, and research. This was the first time that the symposium was organised in the historic city of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The plenary talk was delivered by Professor Syed A. Hussain from the University of Sheffield, UK, who spoke about “Precision Medicine in Oncology”, sharing the latest updates on liquid biopsies and circulating tumour DNA. During the session, Dr Aasim Yusuf, Chief Medical Officer of Shaukat Khanum Hospitals, updated the audience about the research at SKMCH&RC and the education and training opportunities offered by the institution. He appreciated the organisers, especially the event chair Dr Kashif Sajjad from Peshawar and Dr Usman Ahmad from Lahore, and all the attendees for their enthusiastic participation.

Dr Asif Loya, Medical Director of Shaukat Khanum Lahore, presided over the Ahsan Rashid Memorial Research Session, which is the much-anticipated segment of the symposium and named in honour of a great supporter and benefactor of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust. Six papers contested for the Ahsan Rashid Memorial Research Award. The winner, Ali Islam, presented a study on “Next Generation Sequencing-Unravelling genomic variants relevant to clinical practice.” Dr Usman Rashid won the Bashir-Alavi Award for his research “Chasing the origin of 23 recurrent BRCA1 mutations in Pakistani breast & ovarian cancer patients.” Ms. Tahira Batool won the Begum Mir Research Award in the nursing category for her study on “Family caregivers’ experiences of caring for cancer patients in tertiary care hospitals in Islamabad.”

On this occasion, Dr Faisal Sultan, CEO of Shaukat Khanum Hospitals spoke to the media and said that he was pleased to receive positive feedback about the event, especially from young students and researchers who expressed their gratitude for this excellent platform on cancer care. He said that the symposium aims to bring together experts from around the world for effective exchange of knowledge on the subject to enable best possible care for cancer patients in the region.