Doctors urged to detect cancer in early stage

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, MARCH 18. A leading oncologist from Mumbai, Dr. K. A. Dinshaw, said here today that doctors had to share the blame for the `sorry situation' of patients approaching hospitals in an advanced stage of cancer which could be treated if detected early.

Inaugurating a continuing medical education programme on `Cancers in women', she called upon doctors to rectify this unhappy situation of 70-80 per cent of all cancer patients presenting themselves in hospitals in stage III or IV of the disease.

Dr. Dinshaw, who is Director of the Tata Memorial Hospital and Padmashree awardee, pointed out that cancer of the cervix was highly preventable since it had a long lifespan with warning signs available for 10 to 15 years.

Expressing concern over the rapid emergence of cancer as a major health problem worldwide, she said WHO statistics showed that the number of patients would increase from the current 10 million to 15 million by 2010 and 20 million by 2015. As many as 65 to 70 per cent of cancer cases were reported from developing countries which possessed only five per cent of the resources.

Cancer of the cervix, she said, was the leading cause of disease among women in India till it had been overtaken by breast cancer recently. This trend was more pronounced in cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bangalore due to various reasons like changing lifestyles of women, including late marriages and delay in the first pregnancy.

It was time to sit up and fight the challenge posed by breast cancer which was rising exponentially the world over. Early diagnosis and proper treatment was the answer. The patient stood the best chance of survival if the first treatment was right and it was the doctors' responsibility to do things right.

Dr. Dinshaw said the Government of India had come forward to give liberal financial support to the National Cancer Control Programme in the Tenth Plan for launching preventive oncology programmes in rural areas and setting up radiotherapy departments in medical colleges.

Dr. B. Ramesh Babu, Managing Director, Medwin Hospitals, said the face of medicine would totally change in the coming decade with the cracking of the human genome code. He noted that the medical scene in Hyderabad was undergoing a sea change with every hospital coming up with cost-effective medicare.

Dr. M. Babaiah, organising secretary, said the CME was important because every general practitioner, gynaecologist and oncologist regularly came across cases of cancer of the cervix. Dr. Roomi Sinha proposed a vote of thanks.

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