Lung cancer needs greater awareness

Sir,
The article on living with lung cancer by Deborah Hutton sharply focuses on the awful consequences of smoking. My wife died very recently from this pernicious disease and I feel that several points need to be made. By law, cigarettes must carry a warning that smoking can damage your health; well I suppose death might be construed as “damage” to health. The warning should be far more stark and realistic “Smoking causes cancer and this will kill you”.

The second point is that the common form of smoking-caused lung cancer is a small cell. It is virtually impossible to detect this form of cancer early enough to have any real hope of a cure – it has already spread, which it does rapidly. There are some warning signs that the disease has started and if people knew what these were then perhaps detection might be early enough to improve the chance of successful treatment. Just as all medicines and drugs are required to carry a notice concerning their use, side-effects and contrary symptoms, so should every packet of fags have a full statement enclosed which gives the risks of the various diseases, the impact on the smoker’s health and life, and finally the symptoms of developing cancer and what should be done.

I would like to add my personal thanks to the Doctors and Staff of the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Unit in Nicosia: what a wonderful organisation. Also the Cancer Patients’ Support Organisation and the MacMillan Nurses who gave their assistance, advice and help so freely to my wife and myself through a most difficult time.

Sir Walter Raleigh may have saved the feet of Queen Elizabeth I from getting wet by throwing his cloak in a puddle; but his legacy is the millions of people who have died from the weed that he introduced to England.
Jeremy Seavers, Paphos