With the approach of summer and the arrival of May, a month historically dedicated to initiatives to raise awareness of the problem, the topic becomes forcefully topical again of the fight against skin cancer: although the data on the increase in survival are excellent news thanks to the screening programs and the greater sensitivity of the population that they bring with increasingly earlier diagnoses and therefore increasingly treatable neoplasms, the incidence of melanoma continues to grow, with Romagna included among the areas most affected by these neoplasms. The presence of the Riviera is certainly a strong temptation, for young and old, to intense sun exposure: but this does not mean that you cannot enjoy the maritime season in complete tranquility, thanks to some precautions that allow you to stay healthy . It is in this spirit that the Romagna Oncology Institute, in collaboration with the Skin Cancer Unit of the IRST “Dino Amadori” IRCCSwhich also has an office at the “Santa Maria delle Croci” Hospital e with the Italian Melanoma Intergroup (IMI), organizes a day dedicated to prevention in Ravenna on Saturday 18 May, called “Alliance for Health: from schools to beaches”: a morning that includes various initiatives aimed especially at younger people.
The first appointment will take place inside of the Aula Magna of the “Nervi Severini” Artistic High School,institute that has participated in the competition with its students for years “Good Sun Good Skin”, which in the 2023/2024 school year was extended to all artistic and graphic high schools in Romagna. It is acontest sponsored by the Emilia-Romagna Region through which the children are asked to create an attractive graphic design, photo and video to convey the message of prevention and awareness of the risks of incorrect exposure to their peers: the winning entry then becomes the poster that During the year, the Romagnolo Oncology Institute uses, for the purposes of raising awareness within high schools, with the most creative student winning a prize of 500 euros. During the morning, the judging commission will therefore reveal who will succeed Alessia Foschi, the student who had conceived the most convincing work in the 2023 edition. Other works, photos and videos, will be selected subsequently to convey prevention messages on the territory with the collaboration of the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Tourist Promotion Company. Interventions by the prof. Ignazio Stanganelli, Head of the Skin Cancer Unit of the IRST and Director of the School of Specialization in Dermatology at the University of Parma; Franca Gentilinibiologist of the “IOR Scuola” Prevention Team; Maria Costanza Cipullo, Representative for health and legality education of the Ministry of Education and Merit; and the protagonists of the so-called peer education, a new methodology for raising awareness among the school population which involves the training of some students who then become bearers of knowledge and notions of prevention towards their peers. Furthermore, this is the first pilot project at national level in this area. The entire area relating to distance learning is also highly innovative, thanks to the IMI web platforms “Il Sole per Amico for Young” and “Il Sole per Amico for Kids”,with the iconographic and textual contents of the health education activities of the Romagna Oncology Institute and developed in collaboration with Dr. Serena Magi, Skin Cancer Unit IRST training coordinator, and with Dr. Elisabetta Costa, graphic design and multimedia coordinator, to guarantee certified content specifically designed to convey the right messages with the right methodologies directly in the classroom to the various age groups, from elementary schools to middle and high schools.
At the same time as this morning at the “Nervi Severini” Art High School, also the colleagues peer educator of the “Oriani” Scientific High School in Ravenna they will be involved in a health promotion activity on the beach, guaranteeing their presence at the IOR Info Point organized for the occasion in Piazza del Popolo. Also during the morning of Saturday 18th the kids will talk about their experience and distributeleaflet and brochures, the contents of which are always edited by the IRST Skin Cancer Unit, to passers-by who want to learn more about the issues relating to the fight against melanomas. «Why involve especially young people? The reason is simple: despite melanoma being an extremely rare problem in their age group, up to80% of sun exposure occurs in the first 20 years of life – explains the professor himself. Ignazio Stanganelli, Head of the Skin Cancer Unit – accordingly avoiding sunburn during this period is crucial, since it determines a lower risk of developing skin cancer later on: and if you learn good habits when you are young it is easier to follow them even later. We have developed, in close collaboration with the IOR Prevention Team, a series of highly innovative initiatives that represent a unique on the national scene, with content that adapts not only to the age group but also to the context in which we are speaking: alongside the competition that focuses more on creativity, “Good Sun Good Skin”, proposed mainly to art high school students , it is associated with peer education, a more interesting methodology for those biomedical classes in scientific high schools. The goal is clear: push even more on prevention and early diagnosis, in order to reverse the still growing trend of the incidence of melanoma in our territory. On the other hand, the most recent data are very encouraging in this regard: a study published in 2023, which took into consideration the data from forty cancer registries including that of Romagna, highlighted how there is already a stabilization or decrease in men and women under 35 years of age”.
«Our Romagna must become a land of zero tolerance towards tumors – he states Mario Pretolani, President of the Association of Volunteers and Friends of the IOR and reference councilor of the non-profit in the Ravenna area – we are fortunate in our city to have IRST professionals stationed there who, in addition to carrying out an excellent job within the “Santa Maria delle Croci”, are also very active outside of hospital facilities to help us spread the culture of sun prevention in the most widespread way possible. Together with prof. Stanganelli and his team we have developed leafletmultimedia materials bye-learningcompetitions, new teaching methodologies up to and including to training days both on the beaches, for bathers on the Riviera, and dedicated to professionals such as hairdressers, beauticians, tattoo artists: all people who work in close contact with clients’ skin and who, knowing how to recognize suspicious lesions, can make the difference between an early and a late diagnosis. All this amount of activity allows Romagna to be an area of excellence in raising awareness of melanomas and at the forefront at a national level: but the fundamental thing, for us at the IOR, always remains the documented impact that these initiatives have on the survival prospects of our citizens and on the fight against cancer in general. On May 18, Ravenna will therefore be transformed into the Italian capital of skin cancer prevention in the month dedicated to them: we are deeply proud that it does so by involving a segment of the population, that of young people, usually considered to be little attentive to the topic and which instead demonstrates on every occasion great awareness and sense of responsibility.”
