For decades, the diagnosis of cancer has been one of the most feared in the area of cancer medicine. Its mere mention was synonymous with tragedy. However, with the passing of time and the various advances in medicine, this dark panorama has been gaining more and more light.
Today, the prognosis for a cancer patient is much more optimistic than it was just ten years ago. While identifying the conditions in favor of a cancer patient are quite complex – taking into account the fact that there are many types of cancer – we can list five relevant reasons why more people with cancer are surviving today .
5 Reasons More People With Cancer Are Surviving Today
1. The disease is better detected
It has always been said that it is impossible to fight something that cannot be seen. With new technological advances in the field of cancer medicine, diagnosis is no longer a problem in the fight against cancer and the advantage is added that it is easier to treat when it is detected at an early stage. In this sense, there are 3 types of cancer that have undergone great advances.
1.1 Breast cancer
According to the American Cancer Society (SAC), women should have the option of starting an annual breast cancer screening with mammograms at the age of 40. Women ages 45 to 54 should have a mammogram every year, and women 55 and older can have it every 2 years or continue their annual checkup.
Similarly, advances in mammography, including 3D mammograms, allow us to detect more cases of breast cancer.
1.2 Lung cancer
Similar studies have also shown that long-term smokers can benefit from lung cancer screening with a low-dose CT scan. These diagnostic tests can detect small tumors that are not usually visible on conventional X-rays, allowing lung cancer to be treated earlier.
1.3 Colon cancer
One of the great achievements in the field of cancer detection is the decrease in deaths from colon cancer. With each passing day, more and more people are encouraged to undergo a colonoscopy, a medical process capable of detecting and removing polyps with a possible cancer mutation.
2. Chemotherapy treatment is better
How illusory would it be to think of selective weapons? Yes, they identify and kill their target. Yes, they don’t hurt anyone else, no matter how close they are. It may sound like science fiction, but the concept fits the new cancer treatments that are being developed. For example, newer types of chemotherapy target specific types of cancer based on genetic mutations without damaging normal cells.
The typical example is chronic myelogenous leukemia – which we only know by its first name, leukemia – a disease that causes the bone marrow to generate excess white blood cells. Until then, many of the treatments that fought it included drugs that compromised a large part of the patient’s immune and circulatory system. However, following the launch of a drug known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors – Gleevec – in 2001, the average 5-year survival for leukemia has nearly doubled , according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Also, a type of drug called growth factor inhibitors – Tarceva – has shown great promise in extending the lives of people with certain types of advanced-stage pancreatic and lung cancer.
In the future, these new treatments are expected to extend the lives of patients long enough for new and more advanced treatments to be developed.
3. Much progress has been made in cancer treatments
Better techniques and better radiation therapies have certainly contributed to the decline in cancer deaths. Techniques such as robotic surgery and intensity-modulated radiation therapy allow greater precision in the destruction of tumors .
In recent years, some of the most exciting advances have been made in the area of immunotherapy, which helps the body’s immune system destroy cancer cells. In essence, it shuts down the tumor’s ability to protect itself, allowing the immune system to attack the cancer as if it were any infection.
The goal of immunotherapy is not necessarily to cure cancer, but to make it a treatable chronic disease that people can live with indefinitely.
4. Side effects of treatments are more tolerable
In addition to better cancer treatments, great strides have been made in improving problems that make cancer even more difficult. Advances in pain control techniques, for example, can greatly improve a patient’s ability to tolerate their treatments.
New anti-nausea drugs, on the other hand, are making the secondary symptoms of chemotherapy more tolerable . There are also various drugs on the market capable of preventing vomiting and dehydration, which can lead to problems with the kidneys, heart and blood vessels.
Treatment has also been improved for many diseases – from heart disease to infections – that often take the lives of patients weakened by cancer.
Complementary services such as physical therapy and exercise programs are also helping patients improve their health conditions and better support cancer treatments , allowing more favorable results.
5. More awareness about the disease
This may not be measured by indicators or statistics, but it is clear that there is now a greater awareness in the population about what good health means. Unlike the last century, today people are much more careful than what they put in their mouth: does this have a lot of sugar? Colorants? Is it carcinogenic?
Do you want proof? Look around you and count how many people are currently taking care of their health and their diet. Realize the prevalence of fitness centers and the emphasis that has been placed on eating more organic and natural foods.
Little by little, people adopt more responsible habits, such as getting medical check-ups once a year, and put aside other more destructive ones such as tobacco: “the most preventable of the causes of death,” according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States of America.
The smoking rate for American adults fell from 25.5% to 16.8% between 1990 and 2014. This decline has certainly had and will continue to have an impact on deaths from lung cancer.
References
- Bhavesh, Balar. 5 Reasons Why More People Are Surviving Cancer. For Livestrong. [Revised November 2016].
