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.