Mortality rate among lung cancer patients still high

Mortality rate among lung cancer patients still high

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The mortality rate of lung cancer patients in the country remains
high although the equipment and facilities for diagnosis are
better than the last decade, a pulmonologist said.

Ahmad Hudoyo, a pulmonologist at the Persahabatan Hospital in
East Jakarta, said on Saturday that most new patients diagnosed
with lung cancer can only survive for nine months.

The hospital recorded a jump in new lung cancer cases in 2000
to 260 cases from 100 new cases in previous years, most of them
in the advanced stage.

"Only 10 percent of lung cancer patients in Jakarta and 5
percent in Surabaya can have surgery because they are still in
the first stage while the rest are already in the third stage,"
he said.

Addressing a seminar entitled: Update on Multidisciplinary
Management of Cancer, Ahmad said patients with advanced lung
cancer formed only 13 percent of those who survived longer than
five years.

The five-year survival rate is commonly used to monitor the
progress of patients who continue to live five years after
diagnosis, whether they are in remission, disease-free, or under
treatment.

Ahmad said that heavy smoking, poverty, and inaccurate
diagnosis were among the reasons why many patients came to the
hospitals for treatment when they were already in the advanced
stage of the disease.

He added that heavy smokers were reluctant to undergo
screening for early detection because lung cancer in the first
and second stages never showed any significant symptoms.

"They prefer taking regular medicine available in the
drugstores if they get a severe cough or traditional medicine if
they are diagnosed with cancer," Ahmad said.

He said that smokers who smoke 25 cigarettes daily are 33
times more likely to develop lung cancer.

"Half of the male population above 15 years old in the country
are smokers and the new smoker rate is 17 percent annually. So
they are more likely to develop this disease," Ahmad said.

He, however, admitted that doctors' failure to diagnose the
illness also contributed to the patients' condition.

"Often, doctors diagnose the patient's cough as a symptom of
tuberculosis without further evaluation. The patients are asked
to get a thorough examination six months later after some severe
symptoms emerge like a lump on the neck or swollen upper arm," he
said.

Ahmad suggested the patients have a CT-scan to get better
images or auto fluorescence bronchoscope that could detect small
tumors because X-ray's limited sensitivity sometimes affected the
doctor's early diagnosis.

He added that poverty often limited patients access to early
detection or cancer therapies. He said that each chemotherapy
treatment may cost between Rp 7 million (US$781) and Rp 9
million.