Cancer: Prevention & Early Detection

Cancer: prevention & early detection

Cancer cannot always be prevented. But a conscious lifestyle and targeted measures such as the annual preventive medical check-up and the Austrian breast cancer screening program make a significant contribution to the fight against cancer. Early detection increases the chances of treatment and can improve the prognosis.

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• Healthy lifestyle
• Medical check-up and screening
• Occupational and environmental medicine
• Special preventive measures

Healthy lifestyle

Smoking is considered to be a strong risk factor for cancer. For more information about tobacco smoking and its dangers, as well as tips on how to quit smoking, see Quitting Smoking. Not only lung cancer, but also the following types of cancer have been linked to smoking:

• Throat cancer
• Esophageal cancer
• Bladder cancer
• Pancreatic cancer
• Stomach cancer
• Throat cancer
• Kidney cancer
• Prostate cancer
• Liver cancer

For information on nutrition and cancer, see Nutrition and Cancer.

Alcohol is also involved in the development of cancer - especially in carcinomas of the esophagus, the pancreas, the gastrointestinal tract as well as the female breast and liver.

Healthy exercise is seen as a cancer-preventing factor - especially for colon and lung, breast and prostate cancer.

Another important prevention factor is the responsible use of sunlight. This not only accelerates skin aging - if enjoyed in excess - it is also a risk factor for skin cancer. You can find out more about this and how you can best protect yourself under healthy skin.

Medical check-up and screening

The preventive medical check-up, which can be used free of charge once a year by all persons over the age of 18 residing in Austria, serves, among other things, for the early detection of cancer, e.g. skin, cervical and colon cancer. For information on breast cancer screening, see Breast Cancer: Screening Program.

Occupational and environmental medicine

Since certain chemicals can also have a carcinogenic effect in addition to other disease-causing properties, controls by the labor inspectorate and examinations by an occupational physician on potentially endangered personnel (e.g. when working with asbestos) are important measures. In this way, exposure can be kept as low as possible and illness can be detected in good time. Environmental medicine specialists ensure the prevention and early detection of environmental health risks.

Special preventive measures

Since some viruses are associated with the possible development of cancer, the vaccines directed against it not only prevent the respective viral disease, but in the best case also malignant tumors. Viruses alone do not cause cancer, however. But they can bring about decisive changes in the complex development process. For example, hepatitis B and C have been linked to liver cancer, and certain human papillomaviruses have been linked to cervical cancer and head and neck cancer, as well as tumors of the penis. There are vaccines against these viruses. The bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which is one of the causes of gastritis, promotes the occurrence of lymphoma and adenocarcinoma of the stomach. Timely diagnosis and treatment of gastritis is all the more important.

Chemoprevention is the use of active ingredients that can prevent a malignant tumor. Clinical studies in this area are currently ongoing worldwide. Genetic tests as well as tailor-made early diagnosis examinations can be carried out in selected cases in patients with a familial massively increased risk of developing cancer.

In rare cases, cancer prevention surgery is also performed. For example in dysplasia (precancerous stages), familial polyposis of the large intestine (removal of the colon) or hereditary predisposition to hereditary breast cancer (removal of both breasts and both ovaries).