Cancer Test Camp

It is estimated that there are 50,000-70,000 new incident cases of cancer per year. About 20,000 people die of cancer every year, while the number of cancer patients seeking medical help stands at around 35,000. Cancer accounts for 8% of mortality in Nepal.

Cancers with the highest incidence in males are lung, stomach, and larynx, and those in females are cervical, breast, and lung, with crude cancer incidences increasing by each calendar year.  Women comprise a higher number because they are vulnerable to breast, cervix and ovary cancer in addition to other cancers. 69,000 people (60% of whom are female) were diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and that majority of those diagnosed were from rural areas.

It is estimated that more than 30% of all cancer may be prevented by modifying or avoiding key risk factors, including tobacco use, obesity or being overweight, lack of physical activity, alcohol use, unhealthy diets with low fruit and vegetable intake, sexually transmitted HPV infection, urban air pollution, and indoor smoke from solid fuel use in homes. However, public awareness about the warning signs of cancer in relation to early detection and prevention in various countries have shown that general public knowledge is poor. A study reported that increasing a population’s basic cancer knowledge is as important for controlling cancer as are diagnostic tools, screening, and new preventive approaches.

Likewise, around 30-50% of cancer can be cured if diagnosed early. Cancer screening is of utmost importance in cancer prevention and control, which helps to detect cancer early even before the symptoms develop. Detecting cancer in an early stage makes cancer easier to treat as well as the outcome is very successful. Lack of awareness about the prognosis of cancer among patients, their families, and even health care professionals leads to delay in presentation and diagnosis, increasing the number of advanced-stage cancers and thus the morbidity and mortality.

But the bottom-line is that the high mortality of cancer is simply due to the lack of access to and opportunity of screening facility in primarily in remote rural regions and women of Nepal. While you have little time and resources to make significant change in the general medical infrastructure and human technical know-how, you can certainly make difference to few lives through your volunteer project in Nepal.