Cancer Study Group holds first international cancer research workshop
The Ghana Cancer Study Group, comprising surgeons and public health doctors from the medical schools at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, will hold the first ‘International Collaborative Cancer Research’ workshop in Accra from May 7, 2014.
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The three-day workshop will focus on cancer of the breast, colorectal, cervix, liver and the prostate gland.
It is being financed by the National Cancer Institute based in the United States of America, which is also sending representatives to participate in it.
The Ministry of Health is also supporting the organisation of the workshop.
Purpose of workshop
The purpose of the workshop is to highlight research into prevention and management of cancers being undertaken in Ghana and the subsequent treatment offered.
The Chairman of the Ghana Cancer Study Group, Prof. Emeritus E. D. Yeboah, said it would be attended by about 50 clinicians, researchers, nurses, health professionals and advocates.
He indicated that the workshop was being held in collaboration with the universities of California, Pennsylvania and Michigan, all in the US.
Prostate Health Study
Prof. Yeboah said the group had been researching into the various cancers over the past years, adding that key among that research was the Ghana Prostate Health Study which had been ongoing for the past 12 years.
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Research in that area, he said, had established the prevalence of prostate cancer in the country and the risk factors.
He said the numbers were increasing, with most cases found in men aged 50 and above.
He said from 2004 to 2012, about 700 cases of prostate cancer were seen, 62 per cent of which were seen early and were, therefore, curable and treatable with surgery and radiotherapy.
“About 80 per cent of that number were aged 60 and above,” he said.
Breast/Cervical cancers
The Head of Surgery at Korle Bu, Prof. Joe Clegg-Lamptey, said the main cancers presented among women in Ghana were breast and cervical cancers.
The Ghana Cancer Study Group, he said, had started a breast health study in Accra and Kumasi looking to define the risk factors and also the genetic, as well as the biological, factors that exposed Ghanaian women to breast cancer.
He said the pilot phase of the breast health study had been completed and the main study, which will last two years, had started.
Four thousand women, 2,000 with breast cancer and 2,000 without breast cancer, were being recruited for the study, he said.
According to him, cancer progression in Africans was faster than in Caucasians and White people.
“This could be due to the genetic component. The biology of our cancers is different and so there is the need to identify the type we are getting,” he indicated.
Colorectal cancers
Prof. Clegg-Lamptey noted that not much data was available with regard to colorectal cancer, “but we are seeing an increase in both men and women and a group who are getting it at an early stage”.
Research was also being carried out in that area, in collaboration with researchers from the Michigan and the Vanderbilt universities, USA, to help early detection, he said.
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He emphasised the need to intensify public awareness of colorectal cancer, as very little information had been given in that area.
According to him, passing of blood in stool could be a symptom of colorectal cancer, “but in this country people pass blood in their stool for long periods and many treat the condition as piles for many years”.
He pointed out that many doctors were even guilty of this and stressed that any public awareness effort should be directed at both public and private medical practitioners.
Touching on liver cancer, Prof. Clegg-Lamptey said the risk factor was hepatitis.
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He stated that people with liver cancer were diagnosed late, despite the high public awareness of hepatitis.