Cancer identified as leading cause of death among children in Guyana

…action plan for childhood cancers to be rolled out soon

As authorities at the Health Ministry work assiduously to combat the cancer scourge in Guyana, data collected revealed that cancer is the leading cause of death among the younger population.

This was revealed by Coordinator of Cancer Services at the Health Ministry’s Chronic Disease Unit, Dr Shanique Greaves. The seasoned health professional made a recent appearance on the ministry’s Health Matters programme highlighted some of the common types of cancers found in Guyana.
On this point, Dr. Greaves revealed that childhood cancers cases have been on the rise lately this disease, she noted manifests itself in the form of tumors and brain cancer among others.
“The most prevalent cancers in Guyana, they are breast cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer, as well as colon and Colorectal cancer. Of course, we do have focus on childhood cancers, which are also very much prevalent. They come in the form of leukemias or brain cancers, or other types of tumors like the Wilms tumors or neuroblastomas. But they’re all very much on the, they have an increasing, have been increasing over the past few years that for us that poses as a serious health problem.”
Childhood cancer, also known as pediatric cancer, is cancer that develops in children between birth and age 14. In fact, the health professional revealed that cancer has been identified as the main cause of death among the younger population this she attributed to delayed prevention and testing.
“So cancer is the leading cause of death for children and a lot of it comes about because of the fact that when it comes to a prevention and an early diagnosis, it is something that is very much delayed… that are low to middle income resources that might not have the adequate amount of treatment or the available resources in order to be able to detect these cancers, those are some of the things that tend to cause delayed treatment and as well as it decreases your survival rate. So, it is something that we do need to, that we are currently working assiduously in order to create a strategy to combat that and also to decrease the disease burden.”
The likelihood of surviving a diagnosis of childhood cancer depends on the country in which the child lives; in high-income countries, more than 80% of children with cancer are cured, but in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs less) than 30% are cured.
Although childhood cancer cannot generally be prevented or identified through screening, most types of childhood cancer can be cured with generic medicines and other forms of treatment, including surgery and radiotherapy.
The reasons for lower survival rates in LMICs include delay in diagnosis, an inability to obtain an accurate diagnosis, inaccessible therapy, abandonment of treatment, death from toxicity (side effects) and avoidable relapse.

Roll out action plan
Moreover, in a bid to tackle the cancer scourge in Guyana Dr. Greaves revealed that the health Ministry will be working to roll out action plans for several cancers such as childhood cancers and breast cancer.
“We do have other action plans that would have been carried out, which would have been on the prostate cancer program, as well as we are currently seeking to do our strategies for breast cancer and eventually, we’ll take a look into colorectal cancers as well as childhood cancers. It is a lot to process. It is an ongoing process but we are committed to ensuring that the people here of Guyana are able to access quality care and are able to get their screening done as they should.”
Meanwhile, last year the health ministry recorded over 650 cancer cases heath minister Dr. Frank Anthony during his ministry’s year end press conference revealed that cervical, breast, prostate and colorectal cancers are some of the main variations the ministry is currently battling. These cancers he noted accounted for a significant percent of cancer cases recorded in the country