Cancer prevention benefits multiply fast: report
CBC News
Posted: Apr 12, 2011 10:24 AM ET
Last Updated: Apr 12, 2011 11:47 AM ET
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Prevention clinics that offer professional counselling on diet deserve attention from health planners and administrators, a new report says. Mark Duncan/Associated PressSeveral thousand breast cancers could be prevented in Canada each year if prevention strategies such as better diets and more exercise were applied more widely, says a new report concludes.
The Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada released its annual report on the disease on Tuesday in Toronto.
The document includes several reports on cancer prevention, clinical trials and a progress report on access to treatment for different forms of cancer.
"Truly, an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure," concluded Dr. Joseph Ragaz, the group's director and a senior medical oncologist and clinical professor at the University of British Columbia.
Overhaul urged
If all of the research findings on prevention were put into practice today by Canadian women at high risk of breast cancer, several thousands breast cancers could be prevented in the country annually, Ragaz said.
The group said it was asking why governments make an already tough fight harder.
"Whether we look at the lack of prevention programs that could prevent thousands of women from developing breast cancer, or to the decline of clinical trials in Canada that provide patients access to new and potentially effective therapies, or to the under-utilization of nurse practitioners and pharmacists in cancer care, we see that our cancer care system needs an overhaul," added Dr. Pierre Major, the co-chair of the group's board of directors.
Ragaz reviewed the evidence supporting prevention approaches such as:
- Reducing excess weight and obesity by switching away from the current Western diet, which is high in carbohydrates, animal fat and too few fruits and vegetables.
- Increasing regular aerobic exercise.
- Reducing high alcohol intake.
- Drug treatments such as tamoxifen for women at high risk based on family history at a young age or abnormal pathology.
Canada lacks dedicated prevention facilities and organized prevention programs despite rising obesity rates among teenage girls, and women with low socio-economic background and aboriginal background, he noted.
Another section of the report reviews the benefits of clinical trials, noting that less than seven per cent of Canadian adults with cancer are enrolled in studies that give access to potentially effective treatments that may contribute to survival and high-quality care.
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