Cancer screening concern

By LULU MARK
WOMEN must undergo a breast cancer screening as soon as they feel a lump in their breast to start early treatment, a doctor says.
Port Moresby General Hospital head of cancer clinic Dr Peter Olali said many women only decided to seek medical treatment at the late stage of breast cancer.
At that stage, there is not that can be done to help them.
Dr Olali stressed that breast cancer could only be treated in a hospital and not anywhere else by any other means.
“A lot of females, despite being well educated, that are still going to bush doctors and (resorting to) herbal medicine,” he said.
“No herbal medicine has cured any cancer to date.
“I see many people advertising their products claiming that it can cure cancer.
“But I have not seen one being cured by herbs.”
Dr Olali said a woman that went to the cancer clinic with a small lump on her breast and then left.
She never showed up for her appointments for six months.
The next time she came, she was brought in a wheelchair with the lump already burst into a huge sore, and her breast already damaged.
Dr Olali said the woman had resorted to herbs and some imported medication which did not work.
He said breast cancer must be treated early.
“For those who come in the late stage of the cancer, 100 per cent die,” he said.
“Those who come in the early
stages of the cancer, 100 per cent survive.”
Dr Olali said the other common cancer that affected women was the cervical cancer which early detection was also the key in treating it.