RIYADH, 8 March — An internationally renowned expert on nasophrangeal carcinoma (cancer of the nose) has cautioned Saudis against neglecting treatment in the initial stages and said it would be incurable in its terminal phase.
This warning comes from Prof. Skye Hongiun Cheng, nasophrangeal cancer specialist who has come as a consultant to the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center. Prof. Cheng, who is a senior member, Dept. of Radiation Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center, Taipei, and Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Duke University Medical Center, North Carolina, was speaking to Arab News at an interview arranged by Yunus Ma, press counselor at Taipei’s Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the Diplomatic Quarter here.
Prof. Cheng has been invited by Dr. Abdullah Al-Amro, chairman of Radiation Oncology at KFSH&RC, to act as a consultant to the hospital. “We are now exploring the possibility of cooperation between our two institutions in the field of nasophrangeal carcinoma. The focus will be on clinical research.”
To this end, Prof. Cheng said, the main thrust of his current mission is to standardize the diagnosis and treatment process so as to facilitate research and exchange of data between the two institutions. He said he was impressed by the high quality of diagnostic and treatment facilities at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital.
Referring to the incidence of nose cancer in the Kingdom, Prof. Cheng said it was high compared to the US but lower than the figures for Taiwan. Citing WHO statistics, he said the incidence in Saudi Arabia stands at two in every 100,000 population as against 0.1 /100,000 for the US and 8/100,000 for Taiwan. A disturbing trend, however, is the low level of awareness in the Saudi population compared to that of Taiwan.
Elaborating, he pointed out that Saudi patients turn up for treatment at an advanced stage. “Nasophrangeal cancer is a highly curable disease, provided the treatment begins at an early stage. It is 90 percent curable in stages 1 and 11 and 80 percent curable in Stage 111.” He said stage 1V is divided into A,B & C categories. The chances of cure in Stage 1V (A&B) are 60 percent, while it is almost zero in Stage 1V C. Saudi patients normally show in the later stages.
Asked about the symptoms that one should watch out for, he said they include nasal obstruction that makes it difficult to breathe through the nose. Together with a tumor in the neck, these symptoms constitute the first stage of nose cancer. Other indications in the advanced stage are an abnormal noise in the ear (tinnitus) and headache on one side.
For reasons that are not yet clear, nose cancer is more prevalent among Saudi males than in females. Similarly, a close relationship has been identified between ebola virus and NPC (nasophrangeo carcinoma).The causative factors will form the basis of future research at Sun Yat- Sun Medical Center in Taipei.
Prof. Cheng said that in future there could be a higher incidence of liver cancer in the Kingdom due to the higher rate of hepatitis B infection among the males. Also, would-be mothers suffering from liver cancer could infect the baby during the pre-natal stage. A redeeming feature of the situation on the health front is that fewer suffer from breast cancer in the Kingdom than in the US and other western countries.
“Taiwan has become the first country in the world to vaccinate babies against liver cancer,” the nose expert said, adding that all these subjects would be discussed in terms of the potential areas of cooperation between the two countries.