Dispelling myths surrounding causes, treatments

We asked GVI Oncology social worker Mariana Lourens to address some myths about the disease.

• Cancer is a death sentence: The likelihood of dying from cancer has dropped steadily since the 1990s.

Five-year survival rates for some cancers like breast, prostate and thyroid cancers now exceed 90%. The five year survival rate for all cancers combined is currently about 66 %.

“It is important to remember that these rates are combined from a large population of people.

“The life expectancy of an individual patient depends on a number of factors, like, whether the cancer is slow or fast growing, if it has spread, if there are effective treatments available for the specific cancer and the state of the person’s general health.”

• Sugar causes cancer.

There is no scientific indication that eating sugar will make your cancer worse of that if you cut out all sugar, your cancer will shrink or disappear.

However, a high sugar diet may contribute to excess weight gain and obesity is associated with the risk of developing certain cancers.

•  If you cut a cancer it will spread The chance that surgery will cause cancer to spread to other parts of the body is extremely low. Surgeons use special methods and take many steps to prevent cancer cells from spreading during biopsies or surgery to remove tumours.
• Cancer will get worse if exposed to air during surgery

“Exposure to air will not make tumours grow faster or cause cancer to spread to other parts of the body.

“We often hear people saying that surgeons just opened up a patient, closed him again and soon after he passed away. This has nothing to do with exposing tumours to air.

• Radiation treatment cooks, burns, boils and is extremely painful.

“Most patients have no sensation of radiation when receiving the daily treatment and there is no heat.