The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : RCC camps to focus on breast cancer

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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

RCC camps to focus on breast cancer

Staff Reporter

Thiruvananthapuram: Breast cancer is slowly emerging as a major public health issue in the State, prompting the Regional Cancer Centre to focus on this particular cancer in its awareness and detection programmes.

Though three or four commonly occurring cancers in the State are focussed on in the District Cancer Control Programme, it is the increasing incidence of breast cancer, especially in the Corporation areas, that has had the RCC sending out the message on early breast cancer detection.

The RCC, along with the Corporation, has been organising cancer screening and awareness programmes here since 2002. Till now, the programmes were aimed at picking up cases from the community and referring these to cancer specialty hospitals. However, the dropout rates had been quite high due to the high cost of cancer treatment.

The Corporation has now earmarked Rs.5 lakh in the current year for extending financial help to patients towards the cost of investigations and initial treatment. Mayor C. Jayan Babu announced this at a one-day cancer awareness programme organised by the RCC for the Corporation councillors.

“In the absence of a patient support programme, we could not do anything to ensure that those who were detected with cancer reached the treatment centres. If cases can be detected in the pre-cancerous stage, treatment will not be terribly expensive. But there are people who cannot afford even that,” says M.C. Kalavathy of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology, RCC.

Breast cancer, especially, can be fully cured, if detected early. But the cost of diagnostic equipment is so prohibitive that it is difficult for the RCC to offer mammography as a routine screening procedure at the community level. At cancer detection camps, doctors mainly rely on physical examination to detect breast cancer.

The patient support programme might encourage more people to get to the diagnostic centres fast, Dr. Kalavathy hopes.

Since 2002, RCC organised 71 cancer detection camps and 83 awareness programmes as part of the project. Nearly 10,000 people in the city have been screened so far for cancers of the breast, cervix, mouth, which are the most common and treatable cancers in the community.

Through the camps, 28 cases of full-blown cancers and 98 pre-cancers have been detected. The camps also revealed that oral pre-cancers are quite high in some pockets in the city like Poonthura and Karimadom Colony.

Lung cancer rate among males in the Corporation area is also quite high, but the prognosis of treatment is poor even if it can be detected in the initial stages.

The breast cancer incidence in the State is much above the national average. It is the most common cancer among women in the State, with 1,200 new cases registered at the RCC alone annually.

According to the data available with the Thiruvananthapuram Cancer Registry, the incidence rate in rural areas is 19.8 per 100,000 population, while in the urban areas, it is 30.5. Incidence of thyroid and ovarian cancers has also been going up in women in recent times in the district.

Cancer prevention, in Kerala’s setting, has to be taken along with the prevention of chronic lifestyle diseases, Dr. Kalavathy says. Though there is no scientific evidence as yet, diet and lifestyle factors do play a crucial role in accumulating risk factors for cancer, she points out.

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