DR TEMITOPE Onile, a medical consultant at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Lokoja, on Thursday urged governments to raise public awareness on the dangers of cancer.

Onile made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lokoja at the sidelines of this year’s “World Cancer Day”.

The expert stressed the need to increase enlightenment on and encourage the prevention of the disease in the country.

He urged stakeholders and government at all levels to raise awareness on cancer and sensitise the public on its early signs, detection, possible prevention and treatment.

On the causes of cancer, Onile said: “One cannot really pinpoint its major causative agents but that cancer can develop from any organ or part of the body.

“There are some things that can pre-dispose people to cancer in a particular place.”

He noted that some cancers, for instance breast cancer, runs through the family because if a mother had breast cancer, then the daughter should watch out for it.

Onile added that cancer could also be as a result of some agents that might cause mutations in the cells, which could be casinogenic, such as virus, chemicals and cell multiplication, among others.

He said there were more than 100 types of cancer, depending on their causes and the affected part of the body, including colon cancer, lung, prostate, skin, ovarian, cervical, breast and gastric cancer.

The symptom of cancer depends on its stages and most times not symptomatic in the early stage like breast cancer.

At advanced stage, the victim will begin to experience pressure symptom with pains and skin eroded, resulting into bleeding, depending on the affected part of the body.

In general, the symptom depends on the type of cancer the patient is dealing with,” he stated.

He further explained that some few cancers can be cured if detected early through a wide margin extinction of the localised place, but advanced cancers are incurable.

Advanced cancer that had spread to other parts of the body cannot be cured, even with the combination of therapies.

However, the treatment modality is dependent on the type of cancer, which may include the use of drugs (chemotherapy), use of radiography (radiation) and operation (surgery) or combination of all,” he said.

Onile said that some cancers, such as cervix cancer, have vaccines that can be given to young women that have not had sex before to prevent them from having it.

The public must take responsibility for their lives by being self-conscious to present themselves in the hospital for check up, if they notice strange things in their bodies.

Government should organise sensitisation programmes with professionals to go about screening women.

Sensitisation and enlightenment campaigns can be done in schools, public places like markets, car parks and through the media,” he advised.

Mrs Agnes Uba, a cancer patient at FMC Lokoja, also appealed to government to assist cancer patients by funding their medical bills.

I want to plead with the government to come to our aid in footing our medical bills,” she urged.

NAN reports that the World Cancer Day is marked annually on Feb. 4.

It was founded by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) to support the goals of the World Cancer Declaration, written in 2008.

Its primary goal is to foster and raise awareness on cancer and to significantly reduce illness and death caused by cancer by 2020. (NAN)