Prevention and regular check up for managing cancers

Gastrointestinal cancers are leading cause of cancer-related mortality and remains a major challenge for cancer treatment. They account for 26% of the global cancer incidence burden and 35% of all cancer-related deaths; in 2018, there were an estimated 4.8 million new cases and 3.4 million related deaths worldwide.

Recently Dr Foo Kian Fong, a medical oncologist at Mount Elizabeth Hospitals and Gleneagles Hospital, Singapore visited Bangladesh and shared some views with Star Health. His clinical interests are in gastrointestinal cancers.

Despite the combined administration of modern surgical techniques and chemoradiotherapy (CRT), the overall 5-year survival rate of gastrointestinal cancer patients in advanced stage disease is less than 15%, due to rapid disease progression, metastasis, and CRT resistance.

Dr Foo mentioned the recent advancement of immunotherapy, especially targeted immunotherapy in cancer treatment. Although expensive, they are promising and providing breakthrough treatment options. Immunotherapy has been developed in the last few years a lot and changing the whole scenario of cancer tretament which was not possible earlier. Some of the treatment modalities are still in experimental stage, but they are quite promising.

Hepatobilliary cancer is very common due to many reasons. Dr Foo advised that lifestyle plays a vital role managing them. For example, fatty liver is quite a common condition due to urban lifestyle. Regular exercise and dietary modification can slow down the condition to a great extent. We can delay the damage to the liver by simple measures.

Quite often, the only treatment option for end stage liver disease is liver treansplant. It is very expensive and is not available everywhere. But lifestyle changes can prolong the quality of life significantly in this regard.

Along with preventive measures like vaccination, healthy food habit and lifestyle modifications, Dr Foo suggests for regular check up (twice a year) for the early detection of cancer. It is very helpful to maximise the benefit of cancer treatment. Regular follow up is the reason why  people get more benefit in cancer treatment in the developed world.

Dr Foo Kian Fong is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncologist, European Society of Medical Oncologists and the Hong Kong College of Physicians.