Alcohol key player in head and neck cancers
Prof Pankaj Chaturvedi - Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India
500,000 new head and neck cancers are diagnosed every year. Of those 500,000 people who are diagnosed nearly 50% of them die within twelve months of diagnosis. Now, when I say they die of cancer it means they are dying of mouth cancer, they are dying of throat cancer, they are dying of nose cancer. These are the cancers which make you suffer in terms of eating, swallowing, it causes bleeding, it causes smelly breath, it causes difficulty in so many things and constant pain is there so this is a very horrible death.
We must understand that this cancer is happening at a very productive age of life, when people are in middle age. That means it’s a time when you are supposed to give back to the nation you are suffering and the majority of them, they are dying. Of course in middle age you have a family, you have a wife, you have children, you have parents to look after so imagine if 500,000 people are suffering how many people who are dear ones, they are also suffering concurrently.
The issue is what can we do about it? I have told you the numbers. Now, all these head and neck cancers, 90% of them are caused by a few agents. If we are talking about so many people dying rather than investing in cancer treatment, rather than investing in cancer diagnosis or cancer referral, why don’t we just spend a little penny on prevention of these cancers and we know tobacco is the number one cause of all these cancers. People have to be aware that tobacco not only causes these cancers but other very, very common cancers.
Apart from that what is less known is alcohol. It is evidenced by the WHO that alcohol is a confirmed cancer causing substance apart from causing problems which are mental problems, social problems, other health problems like liver problems. Now if alcohol is a cancer causing substance and especially linked to mouth cancer, I am amazed that most governments have done nothing or little to prevent unsafe use of alcohol. They are not saying that if you take safe use of alcohol, within the permissible limit or within the moderate level, that is safe. But look at the way the youngsters are drinking these days on the weekend or on the weekdays. Unfortunately what happens, the industry promotes it as a recreational product though it is their manufacturer liability to make the consumers aware what are the harmful effects of their product. Today if I have to buy, say, any product there is a warning written on it that it causes damage to you, keep it away from the children, keep it away from this. Which alcohol bottle has got a warning that it causes cancer? Today if you just go on the Google search engine, you don’t have to trust me, go on the Google search engine and search alcohol and cancer you get the information. So my message to the governments are that, yes, alcohol has got a safe level, unlike tobacco, but something has to be done so that the way our youth are indulging, teenagers are getting into alcohol, can be stopped and the future burden of the disease, not only because of the cancer but other problems, can be averted.
