LAHORE: The government needed to take measures to reduce environmental pollution if it wanted to control cancer.
This was stated by Dr Samar Mubarak Mand at the 3rd National Cancer Surgery Conference on Friday.
The conference would conclude at the King Edward Medical University on Saturday (today). It was being organised by the KEMU’s Surgery Department in collaboration with the Surgical Oncology Society of Pakistan (SOS-PK).
He was the guest of honour at the conference. He said polluted environment was the leading cause of cancer.
He said post-operative care was critical and that doctors needed to pay greater attention to the patients during that phase.
He added that early diagnosis was key to an effective treatment of cancer. “I helped set up 14 diagnostic centres across the country when I was a member of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission,” he said.
Speakers at the conference said around 275 to 400 deaths in Pakistan in a day were due to cancer. Surgery Department chairman Prof Muhammad Arshad Cheema said there were no trauma registration centres in the country to help come up with an accurate figure for deaths due to cancer. He put a rough estimate at between 100,000 and 150,000.
According to the World Health Organization, he said, out of the 85 million deaths in 2010, about 7.8 million were due to cancer. He said 80 per cent of these were in developing countries.
Cheema said the provincial government had announced plans for a Punjab Cancer Institute in 2006 but no progress had yet been made.
He said the government had also failed to pay due attention to preventing the disease. He said if effective steps were taken the number of deaths due to cancer could be brought down. The proposal to construct a surgical tower at the Mayo Hospital had also never been implemented, he said. The tower was to have 16 operation theatres.
Cheema said every fourth patient at the Mayo Hospital was suffering from cancer. The available facilities, he said, were insufficient to cope with the number of patients.
KEMU vice-chancellor Dr Asad Aslam, Prof Dr Ejaz Ahsan, Prof Dr Zafar Ali Chaudhry and former health minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed also spoke at the conference.
INMOL seminar
‘Pakistan has the most breast cancer patients in Asia’
The Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Oncology (INMOL) organised a seminar on Friday in connection with the day. INMOL directors Dr Syed Waqar Hyder and Dr Imtiaz Randhawa supervised the seminar.
Speakers at the seminar said that Pakistan had the highest number of breast cancer patients in Asia. Ovarian cancer incidence in the country was also among one of the highest worldwide.
They identified several risk factors including ageing, tobacco and alcohol consumption, low fruit and vegetable intake and chronic hepatitis-B (HBV), hepatitis-C (HCV) and some types of human papilloma (HPV) infections.
They listed several cancer types in order of the number of deaths they caused. Among men, these included lung cancer, stomach cancer, liver cancer, colo-rectal, esophagus cancer and prostate cancer. Among women, these included breast cancer, lung, stomach , colo-rectal and cervical cancers.
They said annual deaths from cancer worldwide were projected to rise to 12 million in 2030.
Tracing the history of the World Cancer Day, consultant oncologist Dr Zafar Allouddin said the day was being observed since 2006. “The International Union against Cancer (UICC) initiated a World Cancer Campaign in 2005 in response to the Charter of Paris of 2000,” he said.
He added that the following year the UICC organised World Cancer Day activities in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). One motivation, he said, to observe the day was to spread awareness that 40 per cent of cancers can be prevented by adopting a healthy lifestyle.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 5th, 2011.
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