Cancer: Why it is key to screen early

There is always beauty in sensing a problem and solving it before it bears challenges and tragedies. Likewise, early detection and screening of cancer greatly increases the chances of successful treatment.
Cancer is a disease whose signs and symptoms surface when in most cases it’s too late to treat. However, if we develop a culture of having routine general health check-ups, we can reduce the percentage of cancer deaths.

According to the Uganda Cancer Institute, 33,000 Ugandans are diagnosed with cancer every year, of which only 7,400 make it for care at the cancer institute and 10 million people die around the world. 
It is estimated that 70 percent of cancer deaths occur in low and middle income countries, Uganda inclusive and estimates show that by 2030 cancer deaths will increase to 13 million. 

There is no cure for cancer yet but detecting and treating the disease at an early stage can significantly improve a person’s outlook. The cancers with highest five-year relative survival rates include melanoma, lymphoma and breast, prostate, cervical.
There are two best methods of treating any type of cancer; that is early detection of cancer or early diagnosis (or down staging) and screening. Early diagnosis focuses on detecting symptomatic patients as early as possible, while screening consists of testing healthy individuals to identify those having cancers before any symptoms appear.
According to the World Health Organisation, early diagnosis requires ensuring rapid patient presentation, diagnosis and treatment as soon as the first symptoms appear. It is relevant to all types of cancer.

While screening is relevant to a subset of cancer types only namely cervical, colorectal and breast cancers. In the case of cervical cancer, screening enables a cure at a precancerous stage of the disease with minor surgical treatments. This is not the case for breast cancer, or for colorectal cancer screening by a fecal occult blood test.
It is always very important to have early cancer screening because early diagnosis programmes are comparatively easy and inexpensive to implement; since they cover symptomatic patients only, they are less extensive.
A report from the National Centre for Biotechnology Information done by John R Scheel, and Moses Galukande, among others, show that more than 80 per cent of women presenting for breast cancer treatment in Uganda have the late-stage disease, which is attributable to a dysfunctional referral system and a lack of recognition of the early signs and symptoms among primary health care providers, and compounded by the poor infrastructure and inadequate human capacity.

An article by Uganda Cancer Institute published in May last year showed that screening tests can help find cancer at an early stage before symptoms appear. When abnormal tissue or cancer is found early, it may be easier to treat or cure. By the time symptoms appear, cancer may have grown and spread. 
This can make cancer harder to treat or cure. It is important to remember that when your doctor suggests a screening test, it does not always mean he or she thinks you have cancer. Screening tests are done when you have no cancer symptoms.
However, one would ask why most Ugandans go for cancer tests at a very late stage almost when cancer has already spread all over the body. There are barriers which reduce patients’ chances of being diagnosed and treated quickly.

These include poor cancer awareness among the public, suboptimal knowledge at the primary health care level about cancer symptoms and/or adequate diagnosis follow-up, poor accessibility, low affordability and/or quality of diagnosis and treatment services (waiting lists, errors in diagnosis, administrative red tape, unclear referral pathways, etc), and the many logistical, financial and psychosocial barriers preventing patients from accessing services rapidly.
All people at average risk of acquiring cancer should start testing at the age of 45. In order to overcome this deadly disease, everyone should take the responsibility of visiting healthcare providers to test and there are several testing options, for example physical exam and history, laboratory tests, imaging procedures and genetic tests.

As we are all aware that cervical cancer has become a big burden in Uganda, I call upon parents, guardians to take young girls for the HPV vaccination for early prevention.
As I conclude, everyone doing check-ups for diseases like malaria, HIV/Aids, cancer should also be so much considered because for a person with HIV there are high risks of getting cancer if he or she does not take medication as directed by medical doctors so I urge all Ugandans to carry out cancer screening for early prevention and treatment of cancer.

Authored by Caroline Kanshabe, Intern at the public relations unit, Ministry of Health and student at Uganda Christian University.