“I feel”, the latest project created by the ACTO Sicilia association was born with the aim of educating women since they were teenagers to know their own bodies, to touch themselves, to feel the changes, without inhibitions, without taboos. “It is important to do this, because many patients realize that something has changed in their body only when the symptoms indicate an already ongoing pathology”, commented the president of ACTO Sicilia Annamaria Motta, yesterday afternoon during the presentation of the project which has already seen two moments of aggregation in Catania: the first, a flash mob in Piazza Università and a second on the occasion of World Ovarian Cancer Day and which will continue with masterclasses in which patients, daughters, sisters and mothers, friends and, finally, meetings with schools. The project also involved the creation of an informative and emotional commercial which contains a QR-code with which to access information material.
“Learning to feel – underlined Giusy Scandurra, director of the Medical Oncology Unit of the Cannizzaro Hospital, an expert in the treatment of gynecological and breast tumors – means learning to collect all the signals, whether it is the breast, the abdomen or a mole on the skin that changes shape or color.”
34% of Italian women do not do prevention because they are afraid of not knowing how to manage the results. “There are taboos of a religious nature or of little attention in family and school education which make many women of all ages unprepared to perform simple maneuvers”, reiterates Dr. Scandurra, alongside the ACTO Sicilia association since its birth, which took place in 2021, the flagship of a national ACTO network that already covers nine Italian regions.
Prevention against cancer represents a real mission of the ACTO association. “Alongside prevention messages and campaigns, it is important to commit to “educating” a lifestyle based on prevention – continued Annamaria Motta – Even today, there are many social and psychological barriers that prevent it”.
ACTO was born as a real alliance between the patient, doctors, care staff and family. “When the disease arrives it not only shocks the patient but affects the entire core of the affections – claimed Sonia La Spina, psycho-oncologist of the Medical Oncology of the Cannizzaro Hospital, who has been close to the ACTO SICILIA initiatives for years – the partner, the parents , and the children who must be welcomed and helped to undertake the therapeutic journey in a real alliance”.
“And it is with the spirit of alliance that all ACTO projects are born”, recalled Dr. Scandurra, such as the “Stay standing” project, created with the collaboration of the rugby association ‘I briganti di Librino. “Rugby teaches you to stay on your feet even after the hardest tackle, just like when a cancer diagnosis arrives,” said Giusy Scandurra. And again, the project with the Naval League of Acitrezza. The sea becomes the metaphor of the disease: Only a “prepared crew”, as well as a “prepared family”, will be able to face the storm at sea (and in life).
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