The main cause of cancer deaths is late detection of the disease, said Dr Mradul Kaushik, Director-Operation and Planning, B l Kapur (BlK) Super Specialty Hospital, on Tuesday during the launch of 'Know Cancer-No Cancer', a year-long community outreach campaign initiated by Rotary Club, Rajendra Place, along with BlK Super Specialty Hospital and Radiant life Care Foundation.
The doctor said self examination of cancer by knowing various symptoms can be done to beat the disease. Experts do concur with the doctor. “Mostly, deaths due to cancer occur because of late detection owing to lack of awareness, knowledge about the disease and lack of proper and correct treatment which is a major cause of concern” said Dr Kaushik. He also said breast cancer among women is the biggest cause of death and is often detected late.
As per World Health Organization (WHO), in India 1 per 50,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year while cervical cancer records about 5,00,000 new cases and 2,50,000 deaths each year.
Giving an example of breast cancer, he said, “Before we go for the tests, we should talk about how to detect changes in the body. If breast cancer becomes the part of the curriculum or if it is taught to every girl in schools or various forums, then it will lead to the detection of the disease at a very early stage.”
Apart from that, Dr Mradul Kaushik recognised the main cause behind every cancer as smoking and tobacco consuming. “There is no cancer which is not caused by smoking. Every cancer, you name it, is caused by smoking. The association between cancer and smoking can be small or weak but an association is always there. Also any form of tobacco consumption is also responsible for cancer.”
launching the campaign which focuses on breast, cervical, prostate, head and neck cancer, Dr Kaushik said, “We requested Rotary three months back to start a Cancer screening and awareness program. We started working on a van goes out 4 to 5 times every month in various parts of the city as well as outside Delhi. The main aim of the campaign is to create awareness about Cancer and various signs and symptoms of cancer”.
Under the campaign costing Rs 40 lakhs, 60 cancer screening camps aiming to screen more than 10,000 people, will be organised at various locations in Delhi/NCR, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The campaign aims to provide cancer detection tests like Mammography (a technique using X-rays to diagnose and locate tumours of the breasts), Pap smear (a technique used to detect cervical cancer) for females, prostate screening for males and head and neck screening for both male and female for free.
Already, they have been able to organise 12 camps on experimental basis where they were able to detect about 6 ladies with breast cancer and 3 people with prostate cancer.