Professor Karol Sikora from Imperial College School of Medicine in London to share key findings and insights at Arab Health 2005

This rise in the number of sufferers will be accompanied by a significant improvement in therapies used to treat the various cancers.

His seminar will shed new insight on the human genome project, a 13-year effort coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health aimed at identifying all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA, and its impact of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Sikora will share valuable comparative information that has been harnessed by scientists involved in the project regarding normal and malignant cancer cells and how they relate to various cancer types.

"The silver lining of this dark cloud is that the more experience we have had dealing with cancer, the more time we've spent developing existing therapies and formulating new, more effective ones," said Professor Sikora. "Thanks to phenomenal advances in technology, we are able to monitor patient experiences more efficiently. The more information we have the easier it is for us to prescribe the right therapy."

"The golden age of drug discovery is not far away. For example, instead of defining drugs for use empirically for different types of cancer, we will identify a series of molecular lesions in tumour biopsies. Future patients will receive drugs that target these lesions directly making them all the more effective," he added.

Sikora also plans to use the Arab Health 2005 conference as a platform to highlight the changes anticipated in cancer types, suggesting that over the next 20 years, there will be more sufferers of longer lasting cancers such as prostate, which are easier to control with the proper treatment.

"Educated lifestyle choices and advancements in medical technology are allowing human beings to live longer but cancer is always a possibility and more likely to happen to you when you're older. Consequently the medical fraternity is steadily taking extra measures to ensure that cancer patients continue to enjoy a high quality of life as they age even with a degree of chronic illness," adds Sikora.

Arab Health 2005, the region's leading medical exhibition and conference, reflects the expansion and development of the Middle East healthcare sector as a whole and is expected to host over 2,000 companies from more than 50 countries.

"The Middle East has a burgeoning healthcare sector that is taking major strides in the treatment of chronic conditions like cancer. A doctor of Professor Sikora's calibre will bring internationally-recognized expertise to Arab Health 2005 and we look forward to his attendance at next year's conference as he sheds light on the otherwise dark topic of cancer, a disease that in some way affects us all," said John Hassett, exhibitions director, healthcare division, IIR Middle East.

Karol Sikora is Professor of Cancer Medicine and honorary Consultant Oncologist at Imperial College School of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, London where he was Clinical Director of Cancer Services for 12 years. He is Scientific Director of Medical Solutions PLC, Britain's leading cancer diagnostic company and Special Adviser to HCA International in the creation of the London Cancer Group - the largest UK cancer network outside the NHS in HCA's six major London private hospitals.

He has published over 300 papers and written or edited 17 books including Treatment of Cancer - the standard British postgraduate textbook now going to its fifth edition. He is on the editorial board of several journals and is the founding editor of Gene Therapy and Cancer Strategy. He is a former member of the UK Health Department's Expert Advisory Group on Cancer (the Calman-Hine Committee), the Committee on Safety of Medicines and remains an adviser to the WHO Cancer Programme.