Forum Discussion
Prevention in Survivorship - "What can I do to prevent a cancer recurrence?"
The Cancer Council is hosting a webinar tonight on this topic. Apologies for the late notice but if you are not available this evening, you can still register and then receive an emailed link to the r...
I agree the wording is unfortunate.
You can engage in risk reduction behaviours but still get a recurrence. You can reduce risk but still go on to have metastatic cancer. The problem lies in the fact that you can't quantify the people who avoid a recurrence with reducing the risk factors. The numbers only exist on a big scale. There are so many who do everything 'right' and still get sick, and so many who do everything 'wrong' and never get sick. There's just no way to tell if, for example, I could have avoided BC if I hadn't drunk alcohol. Maybe I could have, maybe I couldn't. Statistically a small number do, but there's no way of knowing who those individuals are. And that's my initial diagnosis, not a recurrence.
"What can I do to reduce the risk of a cancer recurrence" would have been a better title. But as @Sister said, not a BCNA event.
You can engage in risk reduction behaviours but still get a recurrence. You can reduce risk but still go on to have metastatic cancer. The problem lies in the fact that you can't quantify the people who avoid a recurrence with reducing the risk factors. The numbers only exist on a big scale. There are so many who do everything 'right' and still get sick, and so many who do everything 'wrong' and never get sick. There's just no way to tell if, for example, I could have avoided BC if I hadn't drunk alcohol. Maybe I could have, maybe I couldn't. Statistically a small number do, but there's no way of knowing who those individuals are. And that's my initial diagnosis, not a recurrence.
"What can I do to reduce the risk of a cancer recurrence" would have been a better title. But as @Sister said, not a BCNA event.