In a move to rekindle hope for persons living with cancer, experts say children can be cured for life after treatment even as they urged government, philanthropists and corporate organisations to support cancer patients as treatment of the disease could leave families in penury.
In a message of hope during the 2015 Walkathon organised by Children Living with Cancer Foundation, CLWCF, to mark this year’s Childhood Cancer Month with the theme: “Free Chemotherapy Drugs for Every Child”, in Lagos, a Consultant Paediatric Oncologist, Prof. Edamisan Temiye who spoke shortly after the walk which kicked off from the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, said with prompt treatment many cancers would be cured and persons affected freed.
“At LUTH, we are achieving some results. There are cancers we can treat and cure even in Nigeria today. Many more children are being cured. In everybody, prevention is better than cure.
“There are some cancers you can easily detect early. For example, the cancer of the eye, (Retinoblastoma), it usually present like something shiny in a child’s eye usually one or two year old child. Once you see that there is need to see an ophthalmologist who will be in the best position to make diagnosis at that time and then coordinate treatment with other group of doctors because cancer is not treated by just one doctor but a group of doctors in different fields,” he added.
To prevent cancer in children, Temiye stressed the need for parents to monitor swellings in any part of a child’s body, adding that if any painless swelling is observed that person should approach a doctor who should be able to say whether the child should worry about it.
“Most swellings that come up suddenly and the child has fever as a result is not cancer, they are usually infections. These swellings usually come insidiously and grow slowly and not painful but by the time it becomes painful the cancer has spread and there is a problem.
Founder and Executive Director, Children Living with Cancer Foundation, CLWCF, Dr. Nneka Nwaobbi said the Foundation decided to make this year’s Walkathon a children’s affair to press home the message that cancer can affect children and that there is need for parents to look out for signs in order to pick the disease early.
She said parents should always check for persistent symptoms such as white spots in the eye, new squint, blindness, bulging eyeball, lump in the abdomen, pelvis, head and neck, limbs, testes and glands, unexplained fever, loss of weight and appetite,among others.
Decrying the lack of data and a childhood cancer registry, she explained that stakeholders in the fight against childhood cancers will meet in Abuja next month to deliberate on a way forward to improving local cancer records.
She listed three of the commonest cancers in children to include; leukaemia, cancer of the kidney and cancer of the eye, (retinoblastoma), adding that most of these cancers are seen more in LUTH, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUITH and National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, NOHIL. Vanguard
