Richard Epstein, medical director at United Family New Hope Oncology Center Photo: Courtesy of BJU

Zhu Gang, associated chief medical officer at BJU. Photo: Courtesy of BJU

During the annual National Anti-Cancer Week from April 15 to 21 managed by the National Health Commission of China, relevant organizations across the country, such as China Anti-Cancer Association, Cancer Foundation of China, and the Beijing United Family Hospital (BJU), have organized multiple online and offline sessions and events to promote this year's theme of scientific cancer prevention, with an emphasis on raising public awareness of the importance of detecting, diagnosing, and treating cancers at an early stage.

Media outlets, including the health.people.cn under people.cn, held an event on April 15 dedicated to this topic. Hospitals and medical organizations, such as BJU and the United Family New Hope Oncology Center, organized several livestream sessions throughout the week to improve community awareness about early detection of cancer. 

Early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancers is fundamental for curing cancers since patients have a higher chance of survival and relatively fewer complications, Zhu Gang, associated chief medical officer at BJU, told the Global Times on Thursday, adding that the most common cancer types in China are lung cancer, stomach cancer, and colon cancer in both sexes, breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.

Richard Epstein, medical director at the United Family New Hope Oncology Center, revealed several well-proven methods for detecting or diagnosing common cancers at an early or curable stage to the Global Times on Thursday. These methods include imaging modalities, such as mammography and ultrasound for breast cancer and low dose computed tomographic (CT) lung scanning for lung cancer, endoscopies for colorectal and gastroesophageal cancers, and the PSA blood test for prostate cancer. These tests can be used to screen normal people in the population who are at risk of developing such cancers, but have no symptoms.

Zhu suggested that populations which are at risk for developing cancers should get checked up regularly. Taking prostate cancer as an example, it is normally recommended that males get the PSA blood test starting at age 50. However, the high-risk population, such as individuals with a family history of prostate cancer, should start getting the PSA blood tests five years earlier. 

Surgery plays a leading role in the management of common cancers, according to Zhu and Epstein. Surgical removal of the primary tumor is usually the first intervention, although sometimes drug treatment is prescribed before surgery to reduce tumor size. Many operations can now be performed using minimally invasive (keyhole) procedures, through which patients can recover more quickly when compared to open surgery. Either radiation therapy or drug therapy can be administered after surgery as adjuvant treatments that aim to increase the cure rate of the resected tumor. In more advanced disease settings, radiotherapy and drug therapy may be used as palliative treatments to control disease that is no longer curable, and thus improve patient quality of life.

As China now has diverse and rich resources for diagnosing and treating tumors at an early stage, the five-year survival rate and the ten-year survival rate of cancer patients in China have improved, Zhu noted. The five-year survival rate in 2018 for prostate cancer patients in the US was about 97.4 percent, compared with 69.2 percent in China, whereas now the five-year survival rate for prostate cancer patients in Shanghai has already exceeded 82.6 percent.

"Oncology in China has made extremely rapid progress over the last few decades and is now functioning in most respects at a level comparable to that in western countries," Epstein said, adding that clinical trials of new cancer treatments are increasingly being led by outstanding clinician-researchers from Cancer Centers in China.

"It therefore looks certain that many oncologists from China will be taking a world leadership role in pioneering cancer treatment advances over the next decade. To mention one example, the use of low-dose CT screening for the early detection of curable-stage lung cancer could well be one field in which Chinese research comes to lead global progress in lung cancer mortality reduction," Epstein said. 

China's average life expectancy has nearly doubled when compared with decades ago and China's development and progress in diagnosing and treating tumors has contributed to this achievement, Zhu said, noting that the average life expectancy in Shanghai and Beijing has already exceeded 80 years which is basically the same as Japan's average life expectancy.