TREATING CANCER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 January 1943, Page 6

TREATING CANCER

INTERNAL OCCURRENCE. SOME SYMPTONS INDICATED. By The New Zealand Branch of The British Empire Cancer Campaign.) We will deal with the present subject in general terms rather than to particularize about cancer of say the stomach, or the kidney. The exact location of a cancer of an internal organ may be a difficult enough question for the physician to answer, and may necessitate the use of X-Rays and other tests. Here we will discuss the general symptons of internal disease that should raise the suspicion of cancer, and call for expert investigation and sound advice. There may be some dramatic sign such as blood, either coughed up, or vomited, or passed from the bowel or in the urine. Blood may also be lost in small amounts by such routes over a longer period of time. Often however, the symptons are much more vague, insiduous, and less alarming. Older people are more likely to develope cancer than young ones. Over forty-five is sometimes called the “cancer age.” People over forty-five should thus be suspicious of any alteration in any of their bodily habits when such an alteration persists for more than a few days. It might be in the appetite or in the bowel habit. It might be a change in well recognised systoms of an ailment that has been present for years. For example, a habitually constipated person may suddenly experience looseness, or the pain of a stomach ulcer may suddenly become continuous, and not subject to the customary relief formerly obtainable. It might be an old intermittent cough that now becomes persistent all the day through or a voice that becomes permanently husky.

Another sign is loss of weight that progresses steadily without any obvious cause. Many people do not keep account of their weight yet may suspect by the fit of their clothes, e.g. collar, that they are losing weight. That is a reason to consult the doctor at once. Pain in cancer comes late rather than early in the disease. It is also * rarely very acute but characteristically it is very persistent. Of course hundreds of people suffer various types or rheumatic and other pains which can be relieved by warmth and aggravated by cold, damp weather, but the persistent, dull ache in some internal organ is deserving of investigation and, just because it is not very ( bad, it should not be neglected. In every way our lives are very much a matter of well-established habits, and each individual lives with ; his own set of habits. Any alteration in one of these habits that occurs with- j out apparent reason, and persists, I should arouse suspicions that our in- ; ternal organs are trying to adapt themselves to something fresh and we 1 should try to find out the reason why. i