According to latest statistics, 80% of patients with cancer throughout the world no not have access to pain relief- a basic human right. Aditi Das finds out more about this shocking situation

Pain is a phenomenon that unites us all. We are all familiar with the sting of a paper cut, the throbbing of a headache and the discomfort associated with a sore throat. Few of us however, have any concept of the reality of pain in its bare, intense and excruciating form. Chronic pain leaves you unable to work, sleep, wash or even eat. It strips you of your livelihood and renders you as a burden on society. Evidently, ‘true pain’ is not a phenomenon that unites us all.

In a recent report entitled ‘Access to Pain Relief-An Essential Human Right’ (1) Vanessa Adams, a palliative care pharmacist for the charity Help the Hospices, investigated the worldwide accessibility of pain relief for terminally ill patients. Her damning report suggests that 80% of cancer sufferers worldwide do not have sufficient access to analgesia. Furthermore, it revealed that around 7% of patients who suffer from pain secondary to cancer could be easily relieved, but are not. (1) Moreover, as the term “palliative care” encompasses not only cancer patients but also those suffering from other diseases such as HIV, AIDS, COPD and renal disease, the figures above are thought to reflect a gross underestimate of the availability of pain relief worldwide. (more…)

We previously covered how cervical cancer is being tackled in developing countries. Here, Julia Mills discusses what is happening in the US

Cervical cancer kills over 4,600 women annually, in the U.S. (1)  The fight against cervical cancer began 50 years ago with the advent of the Papanicolaou test, commonly known as the Pap smear. The Pap smear is a screening exam that allows for the detection of benign, pre-cancerous, and cancerous lesions of the cervix. (2) Cervical cancer was the deadliest cancer for women prior to the availability of this test. The availability of this simple procedure has made a major impact on the incidence of cervical cancer, which now ranks as the thirteenth most common cause of cancer related deaths for women. (2) (more…)

The UK currently has national screening programs for bowel, breast and cervical cancer. Increasing public awareness of prostate cancer has been associated with a growth in individual demands for screening. Lara Khoury reviews the evidence for national screening programs for prostate cancer.

The advent of the Internet has brought the public the ability to find out vast quantities of information about any disease or condition they wish to research. With this knowledge comes power, and the opportunity for patients to request tests they might never have known about in the pre-Internet era. This has pros and cons, as patients feel more in control, but may also start to make requests the healthcare provider feels are unwarranted. It is highly likely that patients’ increasing knowledge has led to an increase in requests for individual screening for prostate cancer [1]. This re-opens the hotly debated topic regarding introduction of a national screening programme for prostate cancer in countries which are yet to do so, bringing them into line with countries like America, who have been running a screening programme for many years. Prostate cancer incidence continues to increase, with more than 500,000 new diagnoses a year, resulting in over a quarter of a million deaths worldwide [2]. This makes it the third biggest cancer killer in men after lung cancer, but does this merit the introduction of a screening programme? The answer lies in the availability of appropriate and accurate screening tools.

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  Cervical cancer accounts for 1 in 10 of all cancers diagnosed and more than 273,000 deaths in women worldwide every year. (1) Nadine Cozens caught up with Dr. R Sankaranarayanan (Sankar), the author of a recent Lancet Article on the effect of visual screening on the incidence and mortality rate of cervical cancer in the Dindigul district in Tamil Nadu, India (2)

In developing countries, cervical cancer is the commonest cancer to affect women, and contributed to 85% of new cases and deaths worldwide in 2002. With so many women affected by cervical cancer, I was keen to find out the effect of cervical cancer in rural India. Dr Sankar believes that cervical cancer is the main cause of premature death among women in the Dindigul district. Due to the substantial loss of women in the reproductive age group, this has “devastating effects on the social, psychological and emotional well-being of the entire family,” he said.

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