The Liver Disease Prevention and Treatment Research Foundation yesterday celebrated its 18th anniversary in Taipei and announced it had received an anonymous donation of NT$120 million (US$4 million) that will be used to establish a liver-diseases clinic.
The foundation was established in 1994 by a group of doctors specializing in liver disease, mainly for the purposes of conducting medical research and promoting liver-disease prevention.
Later on, the foundation established a liver-disease health center in 2006, providing free liver-disease screening, it said, adding that it is currently planning to build another liver-disease medical center.
Foundation chairperson Sheu Jin-chuan (許金川), a doctor who specializes in hepatitis, said the foundation had received an enormous donation in June, which would be used to build a clinic on Gongyuan Road in Taipei, but the foundation still needs NT$50 million to buy medical equipment.
The foundation invited Sun Pei-yuan (孫培元) and Lee Pin (李聘), two patients who fought liver cancer, to join the anniversary event, during which they encouraged sufferers of liver diseases to be brave in confronting their illness by seeking proper medical treatment and not using folk remedies.
Sun was first told he had elevated levels of alpha-fetoprotein in his blood, an indication of liver cancer, in his thirties. He took folk remedies to cure himself, but later discovered he had a 5cm tumor in his liver, the foundation said, adding that Sun recovered fully after receiving professional medical treatment.
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