A NATIONAL daily reported on Wednesday that in the last decade, the number of cancer patients has doubled in Bangladesh, quoting sources in the National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital (NICRH). The report was based on the admission of the patients in different hospitals across the country. Most of the patients (2436) were diagnosed with cancers of the respiratory tract, including 1,983 lung cancer patients. Smoking causes most of the cancers.
Cancer is a generic term for a group of more than 100 diseases that can affect any part of the human body. Cancer has appeared as an important public health problem in Bangladesh. Due to lack of an appropriate reporting system and under-diagnosis of cancer cases, the real situation is often unknown.
A recent WHO study estimated that there are 49,000 oral, 71,000 laryngeal and 196,000 lung cancer cases in Bangladesh among those aged 30 years or above in the country. More than 70 percent of cancer related deaths occur in low-and middle-income families. Another study reported that rate of deaths from respiratory tract (trachea, lung and bronchus) cancers is comparatively higher in Bangladesh compared to other SAARC countries Sri Lanka, India, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, and Pakistan. Experts say that about 30 percent of cancer deaths can be prevented.
In Bangladesh, common risk factors causing cancer include tobacco use, being overweight or obese, low fruit and vegetable intake, formalin intake with food, physical inactivity, alcohol use, sexually transmitted Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) infection, urban air pollution, indoor smoke from household use of solid fuels and etc.
Bangladesh has a health care system that is poorly prepared to grapple with the double burden of infectious and non-communicable diseases like cancer. Currently, majority of our people do not have access to curative therapies due to our poor economy. They cannot simply afford state-of-the-art medical facilities, or expensive cancer drugs. Experts suggest that about one-third of the cancer burden could be decreased if cases were detected and treated early by educating people about the early signs and countrywide screening program. Some of the most common cancer types, such as breast cancer, cervical cancer and colorectal cancer have high cure rates when detected early and treated according to best practice. Therefore, scaling up prevention and early diagnosis are the most cost-effective ways of dealing with cancer. Relief from pain and other problems can be achieved in over 90 percent of cancer patients through palliative care. As health care is a right, so the government should provide sophisticated diagnosis system and drugs at affordable costs so that poor people can take the opportunity of public health care benefits. No one should die uncared for under any circumstances.
