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KARACHI, Sept 26: Optimal cancer care requires involvement of skilled surgical, medical and radiation oncologist with a coordinated approach, experts said on Friday.
Giving a presentation on “cancer care — prevention and early detection,” the acting chief of the oncology section at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Dr Amyn Alidina, said: “Although care for cancers at advanced stages is available, the best chance of cure is when the cancers are detected early. Screening for breast cancer with barest examination and mammography has proven to have saved lives,” he said.
He said people with hepatitis B and C could get cancer of the liver and they required regular ultrasound to diagnose it early.
Dr Alidina said prevention of hepatitis B with vaccination and treatment of hepatitis B and C with interferon were important aspects of cancer care.
In men, screening for prostate cancer with the PSA and prostate examination could lead to early detection, he said. He said
Regular self-examination for lumps, especially in younger men, could help detect testicular cancer early, he said.
According to him, although cancers could present themselves in an unusual manner, symptoms like blood in the stool; lump in the breast; ulcer or a growth in the mouth, especially for those who chew tobacco; blood in urination; persistently enlarged lymph nodes or vaginal bleeding after coitus or menopause should be evaluated.
Dr Irfan Vaziri, a consultant oncologist, said tobacco contained more than 50 known carcinogens and over 60,000 studies had confirmed the devastating effects of smoking.
He said it caused 30 per cent of the deaths in the developed countries and the related death rate was rising at an alarming rate here.
He said smoking caused 85 to 90 per cent of all lung cancers and was a major cause of head and neck cancers. He said although the cancers were treatable, a majority of the patients died of the disease. He said good screening tests were not available for the diseases and the best course was prevention. He said young people should be discouraged from starting smoking.
Dr Vaziri emphasized that tobacco use could lead to the development of cancers of head and neck, lung, oesophagus, bladder, pancreas, kidney, cervix, stomach and leukaemia. He said cessation of tobacco use remained the mainstay of cancer care.
For those who chewed tobacco, regular ENT examination by specialists could prove useful, he said.
In those who smoke, persistent cough, breathing difficulty, weight loss, difficulty in swallowing or change in voice should be taken seriously, he said.
#PALM OIL:# Scientific studies have revealed that a palm oil diet, as compared to diets containing some polyunsaturated oils, has an inhibitory effect on the development and incidence of cancer, a nutritionist has said..
According to Dr Sohail Ahsan: “It’s a good news for those who use vanaspati ghee in our country as a cooking medium which consumes palm oil as a major raw ingredient.”
He said in a statement that palm oil was the richest source of tocotrienols and “no other common edible oil contains this from of vitamin-E in significant amount.”
Clinical trials had established the tocotrienols of palm oil as effective anti-cancer agents, he said.
He said the fact that palm oil lowered the total blood cholesterol and ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol and increased the ‘good’ HDL cholesterol might be in the knowledge of many but the findings that diet made directly or indirectly in palm oil inhibited development and incidence of cancer might be new for them.
He said tocotrienols of palm oil exhibited anti-cancer properties in a few studies conducted in 1993-94. “Tocotrienols have greater physiological efficiency in inhibiting the growth of human and mouse tumor cells than tocopherol,” he said.
He said that in 1997, Prof Cairoll and Guthrie from University of Western Ontario, Canada, showed in their research that tocotrienols inhibited proliferation and growth of both estrogen recuperator-negative and receptor-positive human breast cells in culture.— APP
