ABC media talked with Khachatur Badalyan, surgical oncologist of Izmirlian Medical Center.
– Are women or men more likely to be diagnosed with cancer? People of what age are a high risk group for the disease? There are reports that the disease has started to show up in younger age groups, including in Armenia.
– It is difficult to say whether women or men are more likely to develop cancer, as there are forms of cancer that afflict exclusively women, and there are forms of tumor that only men develop.
The most common cancers in Armenia are those of lung, womb, breast, stomach, liver and pancreas.
As for the younger age of the disease, I am sorry to say that, according to statistics, cancer is now being diagnosed at a younger age. In addition, I have noticed a considerable increase in cancer pathology in Armenia, as there is a failing in the proper organization of certain oncology services in the health sector. In our country, tumors are detected in the third or fourth stages, which is not that good. If detected in the first or second stage, doctors think about curing the disease, but if detected in the third or fourth stage, doctors think about prolonging the patient’s life, and not curing him/her.
– What to do and not to do in order to minimize the possibility of developing cancer?
– One of the most important things in the world is early detection. For this we need a certain list of examinations that are performed in developed countries. We must have oncological alertness in case of any patient who comes for examination in the ambulatory stage. I think if we properly use the global experience in the sphere of oncology, we will prevent the development of the disease in a younger age group.
– Can cancer be cured? People say that it cannot be cured in Armenia, and they need to go to Germany or Israel, for instance. Why do people think so?
– For years, there has been a state of disarray in medicine: organizational and professional flaws, the economic crisis, that have led to this state. One’s faith in the doctor gets lost. For example, it is par for the course with us, Armenians, to think that if we see a doctor, a lot of things will come out, or we will be prescribed a lot of drugs, so we had better not see a doctor. This is not the right approach. We need to restore people’s faith in doctors, so that they will feel the importance and turn to them at the right time. It is very important to take steps at a state level to highlight the doctor’s role, but we can see that the opposite is being done. When a doctor makes a mistake, they harp on it all the time, forgetting that the doctor is also a human, and it may happen sometimes. The main problem in Armenia is detecting the disease at the right time and taking the correct course of treatment.
Cancer is not a hopeless condition, but a series of responsibilities that the doctor and the patient must shoulder together.
