The Department of Health (DOH) has sounded yesterday the alarm over the rising cases of cancer in the country, particularly among children.

In a press briefing last week, Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral said that every year, the number of cancer cases is increasingly by five percent, owing to cigarette smokingand rising population.”

Tobacco is known to cause lung cancer which is the leading cancer among Filipino men. For women, the leading cancer site is breast.

“Cancer is the third leading cause of mortality in the Philippines, accounting to more than 50,000 deaths every year.

There are many ways to prevent cancer from developing. The most effective way to avoid the most frequent type of cancer is to stop smoking,” she noted.

According to Cabral, the prevalence of smoking is now going down but the effects of this can be felt only after 20 years.

“The lung cancer cases that we have right now are effects of smoking 20 years ago. It takes 20 years for cancer to develop from chronic smoking,” she added.

For breast cancer, the health chief has urged women to perform self-screening of their breast regularly to determine if there are lumps.

Dr Julius Lecciones, director of the DOH-run Philippine Children’s Medical Center, has revealed that annually, some 3,500 children are being diagnosed to have cancer.

This is significantly higher than the 2000 cancer cases found in children five years ago.

“Cancer is one of the most common killers of children. Although pulmonary infection remains to be the number one cause of death in children, cancer is now number three and perhaps should be number two,” he maintained.

Lecciones said about 60 percent of cancer in children are “hematologic malignancies,” particularly leukemia or cancer of the blood, followed by lymphoma or cancer in the lymphatic system. The other types are brain tumor and retina blastoma or cancer in retina of the eye.

He added that while cancer is highly curable, many die from it primarily because of late detection and “abandonment of treatment” due to high cost of anti-cancer drugs.

But the PCMC, he said was among the DOH hospitals that received free anti-cancer medicines from the department last year and this would benefit indigent patients.

Aside from this, the PCMC was able to procure medicines at prices which were three to four times lower so they would be able to treat more children.

Lecciones added that aside from genetic predisposition, the rise in cancer among children could be attributed to poor immunity due to malnutrition and infection

source: Philippine Star
Health & Medicine