The New Year begins with the great news that Digestive Cancers Europe has welcomed a new Member to its fold – PALEMA. As with all new Members we ask them to introduce themselves – so please discover our newest Member via their article below.

But before you do, everyone at DiCE – the team and the Member’s network – offers PALEMA a heartfelt welcome and we look forward very much to getting to know the organisation and working with them to better the lives of people living with digestive cancers across Europe – and to help prevention and early detection to save as many people’s lives as we possibly can – together.

Introducing PALEMA

At the end of 2013 and early 2014, an idea was born in Sweden to start a patient organization for those patients suffering from cancer in the upper gastrointestinal (GI) area. What is somewhat unique in this case, is that it was the medical community who initiated and spearheaded this from the start, recognizing that there was a void in the care of this extremely vulnerable group of patients and their caregivers. Therefore, a few doctors and specialized nurses in cooperation with Nätverket mot Cancer (Network Against Cancer) and Regionalt Cancercentrum Stockholm-Gotland (Regional Cancer Centre Stockholm-Gotland) worked together to start this organization.

Very early on, the focus was on pancreatic cancer but fairly quickly they incorporated all upper GI cancers. The first meetings with patients and caregivers were held in the summer of 2014 and that fall, there was an interim board working hard to put in place articles of incorporation, mission statements and to decide on the name of the organization and its goals.

After lengthy discussions, the interim board agreed on the name Cancerföreningen PALEMA where PAnkreatic- (Pancreatic), LEver-/galla- (liver/bile duct), MAgsäck- och matstrupscancer (stomach and oesophageal) are all represented and the organization became official with the first board meetings being held in March of 2015.

PALEMA’s Objectives

PALEMA’s purpose is to prevent, fight and minimize the effects of the aforementioned cancers as well as work toward improved treatments and patient care for this group.
Efforts and activities to support our goals are:

• Work to build six regional affiliates so we can be closer to patients across Sweden
• Offer a network of support and assistance through shared experiences both for patients and their families and caregivers
• Educate and spread information about these diseases and their ramifications.
• Raise awareness among and influence decision makers to give higher priority to the treatment and fight against these cancer and to minimize the effects of these diseases on all Swedish citizens.
• Raise funds in favor of research, development and education in-line with the organization’s purpose.

Joining the DiCE family of Members
Being Sweden’s only organization focused on small and rare upper digestive cancers, it is important for us to be part of a larger community in order to make our voices better heard. So we feel DiCE is an international platform, which will aid us in our mission …and thus be very beneficial to all our members.

So, via DiCE we look forward to accessing this international platform for knowledge-sharing, offering us increased insights into what is happening in the industry as to medical and technological progress, bringing us possible cooperative projects that we can be involved with across borders, as well as information on better and more effective treatments and finally how best to advocate for our cause.

We are certain that together we can be much stronger advocates and have a much bigger influence.

Contacting PALEMA

To contact us people are invited to go to our website and and use our online contact form, we will endeavour to reply as soon as possible to any questions people may have – either in English or in Swedish.

Would you like to know more about this new Member or do you have other questions? Please contact us.