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Some people choose to turn a blind eye to their condition and wait for it to run its course, simply because they dread the thought of undergoing treatment.

When Boy Timur, 28, was diagnosed with stomach cancer several months ago, he refused to start on the treatment program prescribed by his doctor because he thought it would be a waste of money he didn’t have.

“Why spend the final few days of my life in pain? I’ve got cancer, we all know sooner or later I’m going to die, so why drag myself through the misery?” he said.

Instead, Boy chose to ease the pain in his abdomen with painkillers, despite his doctor’s prognosis that the right treatment could lead to a full recovery. For most people, a cancer diagnosis is akin to a death sentence, commutable only through a long and painful series of treatments with harrowing side effects.

“Cancer is not a death sentence,” says Dr. Ang Peng Tiam, a renowned oncologist at the Parkway Cancer Center in Singapore. “Currently there are many advancements in treatment that will change perceptions.”

The three most common types of cancer in the world are lung, colorectal and breast, and treatment programs the world over are basically the same. “If you can’t afford to get cancer, avoid it,” Ang says.

“If you’re not lucky and still get it, detect it as early as possible. If you’ve done everything to avoid it, but you still get it, treatment is the last option. The goal is to control the disease and to prolong your life.” He says that taking the view that all is lost can be deadly. If patients have that mind-set and they see no point at all in treating their cancer it will grow. “Treatment is very important,” Ang says.

“Indeed not all cancers can be cured, but at least the patients can enjoy some periods of remission before they relapse.” He adds that the disease requires treatment from a team of doctors from various disciplines.

Ang also says it is very important to give cancer patients moral support. He says Indonesian patients are particularly blessed in this regard.

“When an Indonesian person gets sick, the whole family comes together and it’s not something to be discouraged,” he says. Ang adds that in many cases patients suffer from a totally curable cancer that is allowed to reach an advanced stage because they are afraid of the treatment or because of cultural barriers that prevent them from undergoing modern medical treatment.

Dr. Edward Yang Tuck Loong, senior consultant of radiation oncology at the Parkway Cancer Center, says new advances in radiotherapy can deliver painless and precise radiation therapy based on carefully customized plans. One such technique, he says, is TomoTherapy. Currently considered the most advanced form of image-guided radiation therapy (IG/IMRT), TomoTherapy is able to diagnose as well as treat tumors.

The advantage of TomoTherapy is having a radiation treatment beam projected into the tumor continuously as it rotates, rather than having a limited number of fixed beams, each providing only a fraction of the dose necessary to irradiate the tumor. The precision of TomoTherapy also lowers the risk of radiation exposure to healthy tissue.

Another advanced treatment is the positron emission tomography (PET Scan), a nuclear medicine imaging technique that produces a three-dimensional image of functional processes in the body. It can detect the tiniest irregularities throughout the body, including tumors.

Unfortunately, such advanced therapies are still too expensive for many patients, so early detection and education are still critical. Ang says that this is where local governments need to get involved. He says it is crucial to educate the public about early symptoms and early detection by promoting cancer-screening methods, including Pap smears and colonoscopies.

Source: The Jakarta Globe