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Action needed to help the nation's lung cancer patients

Lung cancer, a disease that claims 7,000 lives every year in this country, is hard to detect in the initial stages of development despite medical advances, doctors said.

At a press conference yesterday marking the publication of a clinical guide on lung cancer in Taipei, doctors said that the deadly disease is not discovered in most patients until the cancer progresses to a later stage. When experiencing initial symptoms of dry, irritating, debilitating coughs, patients do not usually seek medical treatment, doctors said.

"Among the 7,000 patients who die of the disease annually, only a few hundred were diagnosed in an early stage," Chen Chih-yi (陳志毅), chief of thoracic surgery in the Veterans General Hospital in Taichung said. The rate of early detection in Taiwan hit a deplorably low 5 percent this year, Chen said.

If malignant tumors are found in patients with lung cancer early enough, they can be removed. If detected in later than the second stage, combinations of radiotherapy and chemotherapy are used. The survival rate of among patients is 70 percent in the early stages, 40 percent in the intermittent period and 25 percent in the later stages.

"Cancer is not limited to just the lungs. Cancerous cells will invade other organs and spread all over the body," said Tsai Chun-ming (蔡俊明), chief of thoracic oncology in the Veterans General Hospital in Taipei.

"The later the treatment, the lower the survival rate," he said.

However, the procedure for early detection is usually costly. A chest scan by the spiral CT, currently the most accurate scanning machine to locate tumors or lymph nodes, costs anywhere from NT$3,000 to NT$4,000 -- a procedure not covered by national health insurance.

A cheaper detection method involves getting a chest X-ray once in a year. But X-ray images are subject to doctor's individual judgments and are therefore of higher risk of erroneous diagnoses.

"I know of many patients who have received X-ray check-ups and their doctors concluded that they were cancer free," Chen said.

Doctors also said that for the past 15 years, the overall survival rate of lung cancer has edged higher to 8 percent, due to more precise diagnosis methods prior to surgery and new drugs on the market. But if the medical advances are to benefit all those who are suspected of having lung cancer the government must lower or cover the fees of spiral CT scans, doctors said.

"It's easy math. If the government places its citizen's health high on the agenda, it should be willing to pay NT$5 billion for annual spiral CT check-up," Chen said.
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