A 20-year-old woman has become the youngest breast cancer patient seen at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).
This was revealed by Dr Lalitha Sripathi, consultant radiation oncologist at the QEH, as she reported that the hospital had successfully reduced waiting days for cancer patients from 142 to 14.
In addition, she said the QEH had also increased the number of new cancer patients seen every week and every month from around 25 to 50, while the number of regular or followup cancer patients seen every month for chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and palliative care was now averaging close to 800.
Speaking at a press conference held in the hospital’s board room yesterday, Sripathi noted that Barbados continued to have an increase in cancer patients.
50 to 70
“The most common cancers in women that I see here is breast cancer and in men the most common cancer that I see here is colon cancer followed by prostate cancer . . . . The age group for women with breast cancer is between 50 to 70 but of late, we are noticing women in their 40s. Recently we have our youngest patient who is actually a 20-year-old was diagnosed with a breast cancer; very unfortunate.” She urged people to practise lifestyle changes by eating wholesome foods and engaging in physical activities. “So I keep on telling this to all our patients individually, one-on-one basis, to avoid red meat, processed meat, processed foods, because they are proven carcinogens, meaning they can definitely cause cancer. It is evidencebased like there is a proof that they can cause cancer. We tell all of our patients to avoid all those artificial drinks, juices, canned foods – those contain preservatives, chemicals and all those are proven to be carcinogenic.
“We would always advise them to eat whole foods, more greens, veggies, fruits and to maintain an active lifestyle, to avoid a sedentary lifestyle, to keep exercising, to maintain a healthy weight and definitely to cut down on alcohol, smoking. Each and every one of these factors will ultimately contribute to causing cancers and once any of these result in mutations, ultimately mutation in the genes is what causes cancer. Some tend to become germ line, meaning they can become hereditary
and can be transferred to the next generation as well. That’s when we tend to see cancers in younger people,” Sripathi said.
Early screening
She also advised early screening.
“If they get regularly screened, they keep themselves active, then we can definitely prevent most of these cancers because most of these cancers are actually preventable.”
Pointing out that studies had shown that diseases such as cancer, diabetes and hypertension had already become an epidemic, the oncologist said they were also dealing with non-fatty liver disease.
“Initially, we used to see the liver disease only in alcoholics and we used to attribute that to alcoholism. Now, we see something called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease on the rise and we see that in people who are not alcoholic.”
She noted this was as a result of the use of seed oils such as canola oil, sunflower oil “and all those oils which are the cheap ones”.
Ian Weithers, senior radiation therapist, lauded the oncology team for the significant reduction in cancer patient waiting periods and the increase in the number accessing care.
He said the hospital was now gearing up for installation of the new linear accelerator cancer treatment machine which would provide worldclass radiation treatment.
The QEH, Weithers added, will also be recruiting another clinical oncologist, haematologist, medical oncologist and other support staff to provide comprehensive cancer care.
(MB)
The post Cancer patient wait time cut appeared first on nationnews.com.