Liver cancer: ‘The poor only show up when it’s too late’

Cadaverous donations will only increase if we educate people, says Dr Adib Rizvi.


Express December 11, 2010

KARACHI: The struggle against organ trade in the country has been a long one. The government promulgated the Organ Transplant Ordinance to put an end to it, however trading still takes part in certain areas, including Lahore and Kashmir, said Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation director Prof. Dr Adibul Hassan Rizvi at a symposium on Friday.

According to statistics, 610,000 people are suffering from liver disorders worldwide. There are 1.8 million individuals with Cirrhosis and six per cent could enter the malignant stage.

According to Prof Rizvi, cadaverous donations would only increase if society were motivated and if there were awareness programmes. In reply to a question, he said that Karachi was no exception to other parts of the country when it came to awareness.

He criticised doctors for providing treatment at costs the poor could not afford. Patients hesitate going to doctors and in the later stages of the disease are told by them that they should have reported earlier. He emphasised that the medical profession has to come up with ways to provide low-cost treatment.

Prof Waseem Jaffery informed the audience that hepatitis C was the leading cause of liver cancer in the country even though Hepatitis B is the most prevailing cause of liver cancer in the world.

While referring to the spread of the disease, he said that only a few labs were working in accordance with the World health Organisation’s standards and there were no incinerators to burn hospital waste such as disposable syringes which are being scavenged from garbage dens, and washed and repacked for reuse.

Prof. Dr Saeed Hamid said that liver cancer is preventable only after vaccination. He agreed that the cost of treatment should be lowered and that awareness measures at an extended level should be started. Screening is more important than the emergence of symptoms, he added.

Hamdard University gastroenterology Prof Dr Ashfaq Ahmed explained liver-screening procedures and scopes and the SIUT’s gastroenterology associate Prof. Dr Zaigham Abbas explained the patho-physiology of the liver.

The speakers at the symposium agreed that the government should introduce a health tax to make scanning and treatment available to the poor, free of cost.  Organs of the mentally dead but on ventilators could be of use if their kith and kin allowed it.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11th, 2010.

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