Coimbatore: Working at a textile factory in the district eroded, Nirmala (name changed), 42, got a surprise in his life in April when he was told that he suffered from a severe prefancer form – cervical intraepitel neoplasia.
Even though he had no symptoms, Nirmala had to undergo several counseling sessions to prepare for the operation to remove the affected womb.
He was given the choice to eliminate only the affected part of his womb and for routine checks.
However, he chose his womb.
He went under a knife on August 11 and was released a few days ago.
Nirmala is one of 190 rustic women filtered in the Western District through cell cancer detection units for breast cancer and recovery projects, launched by the KOVAI MEDICAL CENTER & HOSPITAL (KMC) and Rotary Mettupalayam in February.
Under the project, free medical camps are carried out in the village to identify breast cancer and cervical cancer with cellular mammograms and cervical cancer screening units.
“We can diagnose cervical cancer at the stage even before starting to become cancer.
This prefancing stage is called prizarker lesion,” said the subbian, a gynecological oncologist at KMC.
“Women can be saved from developing cancer only if prizurner lesions are detected at this stage.
Be it a prefancer or initial stage of cancer, the patient will not have any symptoms.
They can only be found if they have a screening test,” he said.
Medical professionals say that women over 30 years are encouraged to take screening tests to detect them in the pre-cancer stages themselves.
The Prakanker stage was found in women over 30 years old.
It may need more than 5-15 years to the prescenters to slowly develop into cancer.
Project Heal provides a window of the opportunity to detect prefances and treat them with simple operations, without going for further care such as radiation or chemotherapy which causes side effects.
“People will receive a disease if they go to the hospital to check-up following symptoms and make it confirmed from a doctor.
Here, we will go to the normal and healthy woman’s doorstep for discraning.
Most of them refuse to admit when they are Knowing the initial conditions, “said Suresh Ananthakrishnan, COO project cure trust.
“Most patients with cervical cancer are identified only at the final stage because there are no symptoms for the disease in the early stages.
With early screening, we can avoid 50-60% of cases.”