'Cancer - a challenge for all health professionals' : Prof.Chintamani, President ABSI, Safdarjung Hospital

Cancer continues to be a challenge for all health professionals and administrators world over. Although we have a better understanding of the biological behavior of this disease and its multimodality management but there are still issues with finances involved especially in the developing countries. The mind set about the disease also needs to change, as in our part of the world we are still obsessed and battling with the infectious diseases .But the good news is that we are waking up to this new epidemic and shall overcome the challenge very soon. Cancers like breast cancer which has now become the most common cancer of human race is now almost curable, if detected early and treated optimally.

Increasing awareness rather than screening for most cancers is what is needed and the available resources, if properly utilized will help us achieve the target of minimizing mortality and morbidity from this dreaded disease significantly. There is usually bankruptcy of thoughts rather than resources in the developing countries and we do need better planning not only from the Government but other sectors also. Having said that, once we identify the problem we are not far from fixing it .

(Prof.Chintamani, The President Of Association of Breast Surgeons Of India, Dept of Surgery, Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi)