National Cancer Awareness Day: All you need to know about this foe

7th November, 2020 is observed as the Cancer awareness day in India to spread awareness,  treatment and bust myths and taboos about the biggest causes of deaths in the world according to WHO.

It’s a malice that has been such a taboo that terrorizes, not just the patient, but also the friends, families and people around the patient. According to the US National Center for Biotechnology Information, only 5–10% of cancer cases are genetic.  90-95% of cancer cases are caused by the surrounding environment, food and living habits.

For a country with so many cases, the people are still unaware and take the word Cancer to be a death sentence in itself.

Between 30-50% of cancers are preventable by healthy lifestyle choices such as avoidance of tobacco and public health measures like immunization against cancer causing infections. Others can be detected early, treated and cured.

On this day we bring you Cancer facts so that you can know more about this evil.

1.Cancer is the second leading cause of death in India after heart diseases.

2.Every year about 11 lakh new cases of cancer are reported in our country.

3.Of these, two out of every three cases are detected in the advanced stage of cancer.

4.Cervical cancer kills a woman every eighth minute

5.25% of cancer victims in India die of oral and lung cancer due to tobacco.

6.At the same time, 25% of cancer-prone women die from oral and breast cancer.

Symptoms of Cancer

It has been seen that usually, cancer has no specific symptoms. They always vary from person to person and also depend on the grade and type of cancer that a person is suffering from. These symptoms, although, indefinite are important to study and examine at an early stage to make sure that treatment can start at the earliest of the stages or better yet a good palliative care can be given to the patients to minimize their suffering.

Symptoms of common cancer in general are:

1.Habits of bowel changed, for example, continuous diarrhoea.

2.Blisters in the mouth and on the tongue for more than three weeks.

3.Signs, changes in size, lumps, discharge or itching in the breast

4.Bleeding with phlegm, blood in motion, loss of appetite, digestive problems

5.Bleeding without periods or excessive bleeding in women.

Causes of cancer

Tobacco, diet weight physical inactivity, alcohol, ultraviolet radiation, viruses and bacteria, ionization radiation (eg X-ray).Pesticides, solvents, fine particles and dust, dioxin, coal, diesel-petrol. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, fungal toxins, vinyl chloride released from burning wood etc.

Treatment of Cancer

Cancer has multiple treatments, but they depend on what type of cancer you have and how advanced it is.

Most common types of treatments include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. While sometimes, some patients require only one form, many a times, the cells and/or the tumour level may have escalated to such a level that at times a person requires a combinations of these treatments.

Cancer is a taboo subject in India that is maintained and reinforced primarily because of the mutual concern of patients, family members and physicians. The first step to address this taboo is to inform cancer patients of their diagnosis and make them understand and help them understand the myth surrounding it. 

Cancer, if caught at an early stage, can be cured and one can go back to leading their lives the normal way.

by- Amodita Joshi