PESHAWAR, Oct 14: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government intends to stem the tide of preventable cancers in the province by creating better public awareness of early screening through a campaign.

During the campaign, the people will be asked to undergo cancer screening for timely treatment in case of the diagnosis of the deadly disease.

`We can reduce incidence of breast, teeth, lung and other cancers through awareness of early screening. Majority of cancers are curable if patients consult right doctors at the right time,` focal person for Free Treatment for Cancer Patients Programme Professor Abid Jamil told Dawn onMonday.

Professor Abid, who is also the head of Medical Oncology Department at Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), said besides free treatment of patients, the programme with an outlay of Rs500 million was also aimed at scaling up public awareness of cancers.

According to him, the programme to begin within a few weeks will create public awareness of cancer and its causative agents as the treatment is more expensive.

The awareness is meant to contain preventable cancers.

The focal person said most cancer patients in the province suffered from chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), whose treatment was so costly that a large majority ofthe sufferers couldn`t afford.

`We have registered 710 patients under the programme launched under an agreement with manufacturer Novartis. Of them, 96 per cent have CML. The rest suffer from stomach and intestine cancers,` he said.

Professor Abid said the average age of cancer patients registered for free treatment was between 35 and 45 years with male-female rate of 55:45.

He said 99 of those cancer patients were from Peshawar, while the rest belonged to far-flung areas.

`The treatment is long and expensive,` he said.

The focal person said 658 (93 per cent) patients continuously received therapy, while 37 (five percent) had died.

He said another five cancer patients (one per cent) failed to turn up for follow-up and seven (one per cent) had made progressed and were on second-line drug.

`CML, which constitutes 10-20 per cent of all blood cancers, is a form of blood cancer, which is caused by a gene mutation and occurs in late fifties (55-60 years) in the western countries,` he said.

According to Professor Abid, research conducted at HMC and other premier institutions, however, showed that the disease was common in younger patients in the country as average age of local patients was 45 year, 10 years less than that in the west.

He said new drugs had brightened the chances of treatment be-sides reduction in side effects such as hair loss, vomiting, diarrhea and severe infections, which were recorded previously.

The focal person said treatment could prolong the patients`lives up to 10 years with almost normal life expectancy and carrying out their normal daily activities.

He, however, said the treatment cost Rs120,000 a month and each patients had to pay Rs1.4 million to Rs2.8 million annually.

Professor Abid said the situation was painful as either people couldn`t benefit when lifesaving treatment was available.

`More than 95 per cent patients can`t bear expenses,` he said.

According to the focal person, under the public-private agreement whose execution began in2011, the government is paying for treatment of first two months of patients and the manufacturers bear the expenses of the remaining 10 months.

He said after three years, all treatment would be provided free of charge by Novartis and the government would not spend any money.

Professor Abid said during 10 years of the programme, 800 patients would benefit from the programme on which Rs571 million would come from the government and Rs7 billion from the manufacturer.

He said the initiative had been designed in view of the ongoing programme to prevent cancers as prevention was far cheaper than treatment.