Earlier Detection Of Cancer Urged

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32265, 7 April 1970, Page 26

Earlier Detection Of Cancer Urged

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 6. Earlier detection of cancer was urged by the Governor-General (Sir Arthur Porritt) ina message today supporting World Health Day.

The World Health Organisation, a branch of the United Nations, sets aside a day each year to promote some particular object. This year the day is April 7 and the theme is the effect of thq early detection of cancer in the saving of lives. . “The ultimate answer to the scourge of cancer is not surgery, and probably not drugs," said Sir Arthur Porritt, himself a highly distinguished surgeon. “It lies in the last pieces of the giant jig-saw of world research that still have to be fitted into place.” Sir Arthur Porritt com--1 mended the Cancer Society

of New Zealand for extending the concept of early detection to the use of routine checks. This would involve clinical, radiological and pathological tests at stipulated intervals.

“A routine examination, just like a chest X-ray, a dental overhaul or a throat swab, will become, acceptable and dissociated from the fear, almost, unfortunately, the feeling of shame that still exists, which seems to cling to the dread word cancer.”

Regular examination would not cause unhealthy introspection, said Sir Arthur Porritt. “Probably, the more it is practised, the less likely lis this to happen,” he said.