February 4 is World Cancer Day, a chance to talk about where cancer research is now as well as how you can work to prevent cancer.
“There’s a lot that still we can do to improve the outcomes if you have cancer, or, you know, at first place to prevent it from happening, so I guess this day is very important to create that awareness,” Dr. Jehanzeb Riaz said.
Dr. Riaz is an oncologist with Covenant. He said it’s important to be aware of health screening.
“There are certain guidelines about age appropriate cancer screenings. Like women, when they turn 35, they need to have mammograms, annual mammograms, they need to have pap smears done annually,” he said. “When they turn 50, you know you need to have a screening colonoscopy to prevent colon cancer. Not to prevent, but to screen for colon cancer. These are all tools we have to detect cancer at an early stage when its curable.”
Dr. Riaz said there is a lot of progress being made in cancer research.
“This is a very exciting time in the world of cancer, because we have explored many new areas, so from traditional chemotherapy, we have moved to targeted therapy, where we individualize the treatment according to the profile of the patient,” Dr. Riaz said. “It’s a very personalized medicine that we are doing.”
His advice for people is to stay healthy.
“Try to live a healthy life, because that’s important, not just for yourself,” Dr. Riaz said. “We are all connected, we have our parents, kids, a lot of other people who depend on us, so it benefits everybody.”
