Early Detection of Cancer and Screening

Early detection of cancer 

Early detection of cancer greatly increases the chances for successful treatment. There are two major components of early detection of cancer: education to promote early diagnosis and screening.

Recognizing possible warning signs of cancer and taking prompt action leads to early diagnosis. Increased awareness of possible warning signs of cancer, among physicians, nurses and other health care providers as well as among the general public, can have a great impact on the disease. Some early signs of cancer include lumps, sores that fail to heal, abnormal bleeding, persistent indigestion, and chronic hoarseness. Early diagnosis is particularly relevant for cancers of the breast, cervix, mouth, larynx, colon and rectum, and skin.

Screening

Screening refers to the use of simple tests across a healthy population in order to identify individuals who have disease, but do not yet have symptoms. Examples include breast cancer screening using mammography and cervical cancer screening using cytology screening methods, including Pap smears. 

Screening programmes should be undertaken only when their effectiveness has been demonstrated, when resources (personnel, equipment, etc.) are sufficient to cover nearly all of the target group, when facilities exist for confirming diagnoses and for treatment and follow-up of those with abnormal results, and when prevalence of the disease is high enough to justify the effort and costs of screening.

Based on the existing evidence, mass population screening can be advocated only for breast and cervical cancer, using mammography screening and cytology screening, in countries where resources are available for wide coverage of the population. Several ongoing studies are currently evaluating low cost approaches to screening that can be implemented and sustained in low-resource settings. For example visual inspection with acetic acid may prove to be an effective screening method for cervical cancer in the near future. More studies that evaluate low cost alternative methods to mammography screening, such as clinical breast examination, are needed.