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Mr. Sergio Neyra

Nicaragua: Appealing for greater cancer prevention

Sergio Neyra is Chief Medical Physicist at the Centro Nacional de Radioterapia (CNR) in Managua, Nicaragua. He has worked at the CNR for 10 years.

Mr. Neyra's decision to become a medical physicist came about by coincidence. In the mid-1990s, he was studying general physics at the University in Managua when one of his professors, former CNR Director Fabio Morales, urged him to specialize in medical physics. At the time there were no Nicaraguan medical physicists working at the CNR, so Mr. Neyra thought this could be an excellent career path. He went to Colombia to complete a one-year medical physics degree and then returned to take up a job at the CNR in 1997.

Mr. Neyra believes that the cancer situation in Nicaragua is getting worse. As in many developing countries, late presentation is a major problem and he continues to see more and more terminal patients enter the CNR: “The health system doesn't detect cancers early enough, so that curative treatment can be provided,” he says.

Although there are many needs on the treatment side, Mr. Neyra feels that strengthening its cancer prevention and early detection capacities is the biggest challenge facing Nicaragua. To reinforce prevention capacity, greater attention must be given to public awareness campaigns, he says. Some NGOs are working on awareness, but only marginally. Mr. Neyra says the government should be more actively spreading awareness. In particular, it should make cigarette warnings a lot stronger. In general, he believes that a “culture of prevention” does not exist in the country.

But from time to time, Mr. Neyra sees former patients around Managua — patients he's helped to cure during his ten years at the hospital and who have been given many more years of life. This, he says, gives him the motivation to go on with his work and remain committed to treating cancer patients.