Be­fore COVID-19 sur­faced, there was an­oth­er med­ical con­di­tion that all health­care pro­fes­sion­als dis­liked di­ag­nos­ing. That is “CAN­CER”; which is al­so non-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, can oc­cur at all ages and can af­fect any part of the body. Pa­tients all around the world equat­ed a di­ag­no­sis of Can­cer to that of one step clos­er to heav­en’s gates and dread­ed this di­ag­no­sis.

To­day, we know more about can­cer than ever be­fore. Through in­vest­ing in re­search and in­no­va­tion, we have wit­nessed ex­tra­or­di­nary break­throughs in can­cer care, di­ag­nos­tics and sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge.

Yet, 10 mil­lion peo­ple die each year from can­cer.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO), “That is more than HIV/AIDS, malar­ia and tu­ber­cu­lo­sis com­bined. By 2030, ex­perts project can­cer deaths to rise to 13 mil­lion if we do not act. The time to act is NOW.”

- Can­cer is a dis­ease that knows no bound­aries and has, or will, af­fect us all ei­ther di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly dur­ing our life­time.

- Can­cer is a lead­ing cause of death world­wide, re­spon­si­ble for 10 mil­lion deaths per year. How­ev­er, we know that more than one third of these deaths are pre­ventable and if de­tect­ed ear­ly enough, many can­cers are cur­able.

- Ac­tions tak­en by every per­son, or­gan­i­sa­tion and gov­ern­ment will help re­duce the bur­den of can­cer to achieve the goal of a 25% re­duc­tion in pre­ma­ture deaths from NCDs by 2030.

- Un­til can­cer aware­ness is im­proved glob­al­ly and ac­tions are tak­en to pre­vent and treat the dis­ease, mil­lions of peo­ple around the world will die un­nec­es­sar­i­ly every year.

- We must act now be­cause the glob­al can­cer epi­dem­ic is enor­mous and set to rise. It is pre­dict­ed to in­crease to 13 mil­lion cas­es per year in 2030.

The glob­al com­mu­ni­ty com­mem­o­rat­ed World Can­cer Day, on Feb­ru­ary 4 and through­out the month with the cho­sen theme ''I Am and I Will” (2019-2021). WHO joins this cam­paign to call every­one, col­lec­tive­ly and in­di­vid­u­al­ly, to com­mit to strength­en ac­tions aimed to re­duce the im­pact of can­cer, not just on one day, but every­day.

CAU­TION your way to pre­vent Can­cer

Har­vard Health states, “About one of every three per­sons will de­vel­op some form of ma­lig­nan­cy dur­ing his or her life­time.” CDC states, “Can­cer is the sec­ond lead­ing cause of death in the Caribbean.”

But in­stead of just wait­ing for new break­throughs, you can do a lot to pro­tect your­self right now. Screen­ing tests can help de­tect ma­lig­nan­cies in their ear­li­est stages, but you should al­ways be alert for symp­toms of the dis­ease. The Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety de­vel­oped this sim­ple re­minder years ago, symp­toms you should note:

C: Change in bow­el or blad­der habits

A: A sore that does not heal

U: Un­usu­al bleed­ing or dis­charge

T: Thick­en­ing or lump in the breast or else­where

I: In­di­ges­tion or dif­fi­cul­ty in swal­low­ing

O: Ob­vi­ous change in a wart or mole

N: Nag­ging cough or hoarse­ness

It is a rough guide at best. The vast ma­jor­i­ty of such symp­toms are caused by non­ma­lig­nant dis­or­ders, and can­cers can pro­duce symp­toms that do not show up on the list, such as un­ex­plained weight loss or fa­tigue. But it is a use­ful re­minder to lis­ten to your body and re­port any dis­tress to your doc­tor.

Cur­ing Can­cer: Treat­ments to Keep an Eye On

Is there a cure for can­cer? If so, how close are we? To an­swer these ques­tions, it is im­por­tant to un­der­stand the dif­fer­ence be­tween a cure and re­mis­sion:

A cure elim­i­nates all traces of can­cer from the body and en­sures it won’t come back.

Re­mis­sion means there are few to no signs of can­cer in the body.

Com­plete re­mis­sion means there aren’t any de­tectable signs of symp­toms of can­cer.

Some doc­tors use the term “cured” when re­fer­ring to can­cer that does not come back with­in five years. But can­cer can still come back af­ter five years, so it is nev­er tru­ly cured.

Cur­rent­ly, there’s no true cure for can­cer but re­cent ad­vances in med­i­cine and tech­nol­o­gy are help­ing move us clos­er than ever to a cure.

Vac­cines

When you think of vac­cines, you prob­a­bly think of them in the con­text of pre­vent­ing in­fec­tious dis­eases, like measles, tetanus and the flu. But some vac­cines can help pre­vent or even treat cer­tain types of can­cer. For ex­am­ple, the hu­man pa­pil­lo­ma (HPV) vac­cine pro­tects against many types of HPV that can cause cer­vi­cal can­cer.

Re­searchers have al­so been work­ing to de­vel­op a vac­cine that helps the im­mune sys­tem di­rect­ly fight can­cer cells. These cells of­ten have mol­e­cules on their sur­faces that are not present in reg­u­lar cells. Ad­min­is­ter­ing a vac­cine con­tain­ing these mol­e­cules can help the im­mune sys­tem bet­ter recog­nise and de­stroy can­cer cells.

Gene ther­a­py

Gene ther­a­py is a form of treat­ing dis­ease by edit­ing or al­ter­ing the genes with­in the cells of the body. Genes con­tain the code that pro­duces many dif­fer­ent kinds of pro­teins. Pro­teins, in turn, af­fect how cells grow, be­have and com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er.

In the case of can­cer, genes be­come de­fec­tive or dam­aged, lead­ing some cells to grow out of con­trol and form a tu­mor. The goal of can­cer gene ther­a­py is to treat dis­ease by re­plac­ing or mod­i­fy­ing this dam­aged ge­net­ic in­for­ma­tion with healthy code.

Re­searchers are still study­ing most gene ther­a­pies in labs or clin­i­cal tri­als.

Nanopar­ti­cles

Nanopar­ti­cles are very tiny struc­tures. They are small­er than cells. Their size al­lows them to move through­out the body and in­ter­act with dif­fer­ent cells and bi­o­log­i­cal mol­e­cules.

Nanopar­ti­cles are promis­ing tools for the treat­ment of can­cer, par­tic­u­lar­ly as a method for de­liv­er­ing drugs to a tu­mor site. This can help make can­cer treat­ment more ef­fec­tive while min­imis­ing side ef­fects.

Stay in the know

The world of can­cer treat­ment is con­stant­ly grow­ing and chang­ing. You can stay up-to-date with these re­sources that are reg­u­lar­ly up­dat­ed with ar­ti­cles about the lat­est can­cer re­search, ther­a­pies and break­throughs:

NCI Clin­i­cal Tri­al Data­base Trust­ed Source: The Na­tion­al Can­cer In­sti­tute (NCI) main­tains this site.

The Can­cer Re­search In­sti­tute blog: This is a blog by the Can­cer Re­search In­sti­tute health care ex­perts.

The Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety:

The Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety of­fers up-to-date in­for­ma­tion on can­cer screen­ing guide­lines, avail­able treat­ments and re­search up­dates.