Health

Many still ignorant about cancer, study shows

by LotusFlower | December 26, 2008 at 12:25 am

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Research shows that people across the world are still ignorant about cancer and that this ignorance leads to more chnce of death from the diseases.

In a report highlighting ignorance in Singapore almost two thirds of people were found to wrongly believe that cancer is always fatal.

This level of ignorance is mirrored in many places across the world and the belief that once you have cancer its inevitable that death follows leads to many people not getting screened for cancer even though there are many cancers where early treatment can lead to a full recovery.

More money and time on finding and developing new treatments and preventative measures is always welcome but without more investment in cancer education many lives will still be lost that could have been saved.

ALMOST two in three adults here believe that cancer is always fatal, and half think that it will always recur, a study has found.

And almost a third felt that screening was meant for people who were already experiencing symptoms or were unwell.

The survey of 480 HDB dwellers aged above 40 who never had cancer found that many did not know the facts about cancer, and this could have an adverse impact on them.

The study's main researcher, Dr Helena Verkooijen, said: 'It's quite shocking that there are quite a lot of misconceptions.'

Having the wrong ideas could stop people from taking preventive action that could save their lives, such as going for screening or changing bad habits, said Dr Verkooijen, an adjunct associate professor of the National University of Singapore's department of community, occupational and family medicine.

The study found, for example, that those with very poor knowledge about cancer were three times less likely to have gone for cancer screening than those who were highly knowledgeable.

The top third with the highest scores were defined as highly knowledgeable, and the bottom third were defined as having poor knowledge.

Dr Verkooijen told The Straits Times: 'If people think, it's fated anyway, I'm going to die, why should I bother? Then they won't change their lifestyles or go for screening.