TREATMENT OF CANCER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1943, Page 6

TREATMENT OF CANCER

CURABLE DISEASE IN EARLY STAGES. RECOGNITION OF SYMPTOMS. A series of articles dealing with the cancer problem has been prepared by the British Empire Cancer Campaign with the following objectives:—(l) to place before the public a true picture of what relief may reasonably be expected when full advantage is taken of the benefits that modern surgery, radium and X-ray treatment are in a position to confer; (2) to indicate what is to be expected from the individual if, in his or her necessity, these benefits are to be obtained; and (3) to show that in some instances the early adoption of adequate precautions may convert a possible situation for cancer in the body into a region at which it is no longer to be feared. Cancer is a curable disease and time, in the sense of treatment at the earliest possible state in the disease, is the most important factor determining the truth of this statement. The society is backed by a group of doctors who give gratuitously of their time and experience in advising those people who may fear that they are suffering some form of cancer. Fear is the greatest enemy to be contested in this struggle. If patients would come for advice at the first sign of disease there would be little cause for fear. He or she who hides his symptoms because he fears, wrongly, he has cancer—a fear that might be dispelled in a few minutes —or he suffers because, if his fears are correct, he has put off seeking advice too long to hope for any lasting help. In the articles to appear in later issues the truth about cancer will be told : how it is possible to recognise cancer in its early stages, what is being done for the treatment of cancer, and how the individual can help himself and the thousands of his fellows by keeping in touch with the work of this organisation. Information collected from sufferers from cancer is most valuable in the fight, and the co-opera-' tion of all such is sought in the expectation that others in their turn may be helped.