"Get screened now!" is the mes­sage from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Can­cer So­ci­ety (TTCS) on the oc­ca­sion of World Can­cer Day which is be­ing ob­served to­day. Well-known can­cer sur­vivor, en­ter­tain­er Mar­cia Mi­ran­da, has joined the TTCS dri­ve to en­cour­age an­nu­al screen­ings on this sig­nif­i­cant day. Mi­ran­da, who re­cent­ly lost her sis­ter, Pearl Fer­nan­do, to cer­vi­cal can­cer, knows on­ly too well the trag­ic con­se­quences of not hav­ing reg­u­lar screen­ings. "I strong­ly be­lieve your sur­vival rate is great­ly at­trib­uted, not main­ly to the chemother­a­py or the ra­di­a­tion, but to ear­ly de­tec­tion. A sim­ple swab of the cervix as a rou­tine year­ly check may have saved my sis­ter's life." Mi­ran­da con­tin­ued: "I know that a rou­tine self breast ex­am­i­na­tion, fol­lowed by a mam­mo­gram, saved mine. I urge you to make can­cer screen­ing a part of your life, es­pe­cial­ly if you are at high risk. "I saw my sis­ter suf­fer ter­ri­bly with late stage can­cer. I wouldn't want any­one to be in that po­si­tion. It can be avoid­ed. There are ob­vi­ous­ly some can­cers that are hard­er to find than oth­ers. How­ev­er, for a dis­ease that so many see as a death sen­tence, the fact is, that ear­ly de­tec­tion, in my opin­ion, of­fers the best hope."

Pap smears de­tect pre-can­cer­ous le­sions and al­low ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion to pre­vent the de­vel­op­ment of cer­vi­cal can­cer. Mam­mo­grams can de­tect ab­nor­mal­i­ties in the breast be­fore a pa­tient shows clin­i­cal symp­toms. When ear­ly signs of the dis­ease are iden­ti­fied and treat­ed, pa­tients have the best chance of good health. This year, un­der World Can­cer Day's theme of "To­geth­er let's do some­thing," the TTCS is urg­ing all cit­i­zens to get their rel­e­vant screen­ings done and to make it a reg­u­lar part of their lives. Chair­man of the TTCS, Dr George Laquis, af­firmed this, say­ing: "Peo­ple must get much more ag­gres­sive about their health, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the fact that a third or more of all can­cers can be pre­vent­ed with lifestyle choic­es: don't smoke or abuse al­co­hol, do ex­er­cise reg­u­lar­ly and eat a health­ful di­et. "It's not just can­cers that are pre­vent­ed, but oth­er chron­ic non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases like heart dis­ease and di­a­betes. Peo­ple hold the key to good health in their own hands.

"And to pre­vent can­cer, make sure you get your screen­ings done every year. If you catch most types of can­cer ear­ly, your abil­i­ty to fight the dis­ease is tremen­dous."

The TTCS is as­sist­ing the pub­lic in ac­cess­ing can­cer screen­ings by of­fer­ing ten per cent off all mam­mo­grams and pap smears per­formed at its clin­ic at 62, Ros­ali­no Street, Wood­brook in Port-of-Spain from Feb­ru­ary 27 to March 2. There are heav­i­ly sub­sidised tests avail­able for men to do prostate ex­am­i­na­tions and all men over the age of 40 or who are at risk are en­cour­aged to take ad­van­tage of this op­por­tu­ni­ty. Per­sons are asked to call the TTCS at 622-6827 for more in­for­ma­tion. Dr Laquis added: "Some of our most com­mon can­cers in T&T, like breast, cer­vi­cal and col­orec­tal can­cer, can be ef­fec­tive­ly man­aged if caught ear­ly. Do your loved ones a favour and get test­ed."