CANCER AND WOMEN: Awareness Lecture organised by Fortis Hospital Ludhiana

Ludhiana, April 6, 2015: Awareness Lecture was organised by Fortis Hospital Ludhiana under the supervision of Dr.Parveen, Senior Consultant Radiation Oncology. Helping Hand Club (NGO) has called “Cancer and Women”. Globally about 150 women’s and their relatives attended the programme. Separate rounds of Interaction were held and a lot of queries regarding cancer were resolved. The whole session was followed by question-answer round on various scenarios of daily life.

“In Today’s times there has been a significant rise in incidence of all types of cancers. Particularly in female’s cancer breast has come up as number one followed by other cancers like cancer cervix, body uterus, esophagus, lung, head and neck and many other rare cancers” said Dr.Parveen.

Giving More information Dr.Parveen said, “Cancer is one of the frequently talked about and most feared diseases that falls under the genre of lifestyle diseases that have evolved rather rapidly in the past decades, has now  become more manageable , thanks to fervent efforts of researchers and oncologists. Same way treatment of cancers with help of radiation has also become more   specific with lesser side effects or side effects that are easily cured. Radiation therapy remains one the main treatment modalities along with surgery and chemotherapy.

How Radiation Works:

There is a great fear as to what radiation therapy is and how it works. Patients discuss amongst each other and come to conclusions like it’s some kind of heat or current which passed through the body ect. These are all myths and there no need to be afraid of this treatment. In radiation therapy there is use of high energy rays or particles that destroy cancer cells in that specified or defined area.  The goal of radiation therapy is to give high dose of radiation to kill cancer cells, while limiting the amount of radiation exposure and damage to normal cells.

Side effects of radiation therapy

There are varied kinds of side effects and they depend upon the area or the part of the body under treatment. These side effects are caused due to damage of healthy or normal cells in the body. Side effects occur with any type of treatment but not everyone has them or experiences them in the same way. Symptoms and side effects include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fatigue. Since radiation is a localized treatment the side effects that we get are quite manageable. These may affect the well being of the patients and the quality of life. These side effects can be treated and managed by the healthcare team and the treating physician

“In short I would like to emphasise on the fact that radiation therapy is nothing to be feared off, it is safe modality of treatment whenever recommended”, she said.

Also present on the occasion were Vivan Gill, Facility Director, Dr.Harpreet Brar, Admin Head Dr.Ankush Mehta, Medical Superintendent Fortis Hospital, Ludhiana and Raman Goyal, President Helping Hands Club.