Cancer

Signs and symptoms of cancer include:

• Lumps
• Abnormal bleeding
• Unexplained weight loss
• Change in bowel habits

Common types of cancer:

• Non-melanoma skin cancer - Affecting more than 1 million people a year
• Lung cancer - causes the death of about 160,000 people annually
• Breast cancer - most common in women 
• Prostate cancer - most common in men
• Colorectal cancer
• Kidney cancer - diagnosed in over 49,000 a year
• Leukemia 

Causes of cancer:

• Smoking causes 22% of cancer deaths
• Obesity
• Poor diet
• Lack of physical activity
• Excessive drinking of alcohol

How to prevent cancer

• Not smoking
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Not drinking too much alcohol
• Eating plenty of vegetables, fruits and whole grains
• Vaccination against certain infectious diseases
• Not eating too much processed and red meat
• Avoiding too much sunlight exposure

Detection of cancer:

In the US, 1 in 2 women and 1 in 3 men will develop cancer in their lifetime. Cancer can be detected via screening tests. It is then typically further investigated by medical imaging and confirmed by biopsy.

Treatment of cancer:

Cancer is often treated with some combination of radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy and targeted therapy. In general, the survival rates for each type of cancer is improving gradually.

Pain and symptom management are an important part of care. Palliative care is particularly important in people with advanced disease.

Cure for Cancer: 

Ultimately, there has been no definite cure for cancer but there definitely are treatments for it. Many experts believe that the cure for cancer has already been discovered but has been banned from being utilised because of medical guidelines to prescribed medication. For example, there is a possibility that there is a cure that works on human beings but causes harm or is ineffective on lab mice, hence has been disposed of as a potential cure. 

Read this post for more information on cancer and health screening in Singapore.