Setting the record straight on this needling question on cancer..
Cancer is not a contagious disease
(ST Forum - 09 March '09)
WE REFER to the article by Andy Ho last Saturday, "'Catch' cancer? Yes, you can".
( http://heresthenews.blogspot.com/2009/03/cancer-yes-you-can.html )
It highlights the role of infectious agents, particularly viruses in causing cancer, and suggests that since viruses are infectious, one might "catch" cancer from a cancer patient.
Viruses have been known to play a role in cancer causation since the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the transforming activity of the rous sarcoma virus in chickens by Dr Peyton Rous nearly 100 years ago. However, an infectious virus causing cancer is different from cancer being a contagious disease. In other words, healthy patients do not acquire cancer from another patient.
One of our patients mentioned this as a concern recently, and we feel it is important to point this out as cancer patients require the full support and care of their loved ones. It would be sad to see our patients with advanced cancer dying alone and or with relatives fearing to hold their hands or touch them. Some may even use such excuses to neglect or isolate their relatives with cancer.
Viruses are widespread and many people may have been exposed without symptoms. Hepatitis B carriers, for example, have an increased risk of liver cancer. Carriers could pass on hepatitis B as an infection, and all necessary precautions should be taken to minimise this.
However, only a minority of hepatitis B carriers develop liver cancer. These patients frequently acquired their infection many years ago at birth or during childhood. The liver cancer itself is not contagious.
It is estimated that 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the adult American population has been exposed to the virus mentioned in the article, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which is related to nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) and lymphoma.
About 50 per cent of the world population has been exposed to the bacterium, helicobactor pylori, related to stomach cancer.
Overall, very few people who are exposed eventually develop these cancers.
Certainly, hand washing and other general hygiene measures are needed when we care for our loved ones with cancer, mainly to protect them from germs. However, we should not let that prevent us from touching and loving them.
Dr Peter Ang Cher Siang
Dr Tay Miah Hiang
Dr Leong Swan Swan
Oncocare Cancer Centre
