World Cancer Day: treatment of cancer in Nigeria is abysmally poor- Dayo Faduyile
– Steve Ovirih.
The World Cancer Day 2020 has held with the team, ‘ I am and I will’. The World Health Organization (WHO) has it that globally, more cases of cancer have been recorded and even in Nigeria, cancer is said to be responsible for the death of almost 41,000 people in the out gone year. Yet in 2018, 72 000 new cases of cancer were reported.
On a National Television Programme, Nigeria Today, monitored by our medium, two health experts, Dr. Dayo Francis Faduyile, President Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), and Dr. Sunday Omoya, Chairman National Committee on Cancer talked about the prevention trend and curative measures of cancer to commemorate the World Cancer Day.
Giving an exposition on how cancer enters human skin, Dr. Dayo Faduyile said, ” cancer is one of the things human beings had carried from time immemorial. It is important to note that when we were born , we were little in terms of weight and over time , we started improving, increasing in size and adding weight as well as growing taller.
” What this means is that the cell, the single smallest portion of our body will have to divide severally so that we can increase in height and size. By the time these cells are divided , we would have had thousands and millions of division in our body system.”
Faduyile noted however that in the course of the division of these cells, some do undergo some form of malformed division and this malformed division the body system has a mechanism of destroying.
Continuing, the NMA President said when the body system loses the capacity to take off those cells that are not good in the body in the process of division, the malformed cells can replicate themselves and because there was an initial malformation in the division of the cell , it grows beyond the body’s capacity for its control . The consultant pathologist said, ” the moment we forfeit the moderation mechanism that takes care of the division of the cell in our body, the cell will continue to grow out of control , endangering other functioning organs and mechanism of the human body.”
This growth, Dr. Faduyile noted, causes the death of other cells and inconveniences to the body system. He maintained that it is in the course of this inconvenience of the malformed division of body cells that cancer materialises causative factor of cancer cells .
In his medical opinion, Dr. Sunday Omoya said the mechanism to fight unwanted growth in the human body is part of the body system, however, some individuals are predisposed to cancer because of their life style. He also said there are some infection contracted that are susceptible to precancerous growth , stressing that apart from life style that are prone to cancer , exposure to radiation, excess in take of alcohol and the fact that in some people, they are born with the predisposition to cervical cancer growth. Dr. Omoya said, ” some people are born with strong chances of having cervical cancer, the human papiloma virus (HPV) tendency with a gene like the brackegene . In breast cancer cases, some individuals posses an innate gene like pratogen in excess.
Talking about the causes of cancer, Dr. Faduyile stressed that there is no single cause of the majority of the cancer people suffer from. ” Majority of cancer do not have a single major cause, however , so many diverse things predispose individuals to cancer,” he said.
He noted that Human Papiloma virus (HPV), Cervical cancer, Herpatitis B Virus, Liver cancer , RB gene in of the eyes are all types of cancer that one predisposed to cancer can suffer from
Whilenoting that inherited genes sometimes might not really predispose a person to having cancer, Dr. Faduyile noted that life style makes people to be prone to cancer most times.
On the issue of cervical cancer , Dr. Sunday Omoya, an oncologist lamented that Nigeria is not proactive as regards the prevention of cervical cancer. He said before one eventually develops cervical cancer there would be precancerous changes and tell tale signs but in most cases of such patients, there is little or no screening done. He said one who would have of the cervix if she had gone through medical screening such would be prevented
While noting that inherited genes sometimes might not really predispose a person to having cancer, Dr. Faduyile noted that life style makes people to be prone to cancer most times.
On the issue of cervical cancer , Dr. Sunday Omoya, an oncologist lamented that Nigeria is not proactive as regards the prevention of cervical cancer. He said before one eventually develops cervical cancer there would be precancerous changes and tell tale signs but in most cases of such patients, there is little or no screening done. He said one who would have cancer of the cervix, if she had gone through medical screening such would be prevented
Speaking further on the cervical cancer challenge, Dr. Faduyile made it clear that cervical cancer has almost been eradicated in many countries of the world. ” There is a national policy on cervical cancer by governments of countries that show concern on the matter. HPV/DNA tests are very cheap and are done every three years. With this screening, an early detection of cervical cancer is done . But in Nigeria such screening hardly takes place.”
On the prevention of cancer, Faduyile said we just have to change our lifestyle lest we catch the cancer bug unawares. He advised that people should go natural in what they eat noting that rather than rely on consuming refined and processed meals that contain preservatives that damage the body system , we should take more of natural fruits which contain antioxidants that repair cells and correct cell damage.
Dr Faduyile maintained that the curative pace of cancer medically in Nigeria is abysmally poor and that is where government really needs to come in. ” When cancer is diagnosed in a patient, the next step is to subject him or her to chemotherapy, but issue is, how do we diagnose cancer in Nigeria? Do we even have what is required for cancer diagnosis?
” While early detection of cancer is good, here we have few pathologists , we have the challenge of poor equipment and even there is poor awareness on the early detection of cancer,’ Faduyile stressed.
He emphasised that one of the reasons early detection of cancer is good is because there are instances of avoidable deaths connected to it. ” Take for instance Polyposis in the digestive system; anyone who has it will come terribly down by age forty , yet if this condition is diagnosed early enough the patient will be subjected to early treatment or palliation . This is better than just discovering at age 38 or 40 that the patient has Polyposis .” For Colorectal casygloma , Dr Faduyile said this can only be detected when protoscopy is carried out on a patient. He noted however that it is very costly to afford . ” How many of us can afford that?” He asked.
On the treatment of cancer , Dr. Dayo Faduyile maintained that there are different level of treatment ; itemising them, he said, ” cancer can be treated through drugs , that is chemotherapy. Through radiation, the radiotherapy treatment; through operation known as surgical oncology and through immunotherapy.”
He noted that the treatment regimen of cancer is not fully composite in any part of Nigeria, lamenting the fact that this on its own is a challenge to curing cancer. ” In a hospital where you have chemotherapist , you may not have oncologist and even where there are radiotherapist, there are no necessary equipment to work with . In fact it is glaring to medical experts that the treatment of cancer in Nigeria is abysmally poor.”
Calling on government to develop its unique national cancer prevention and curative policy, Dr Faduyile said according to the global best practice and curative trend on cancer, it is no longer a high mortality rate disease in countries of the world where adequate concern have been focused on cancer matter.
On the theme of the 2020 world cancer Day, ‘ I am and I will’ , Dr Sunday Omoya said it is motivated by the desire for each individual to realise he or she is an awareness agent to ensure cancer is prevented. ” We have an identity and we can carry the identity into whatever we can do to prevent cancer as well as to advocate for the prevention of cancer so as to reduce the cancer burden in Nigeria.”
Dr. Faduyile encouraged Nigerians to be a step ahead of cancer by ensuring early and very prompt detection.
