Over the years, CPAA has invested a great deal of thought and effort into developing ways to raise public awareness about cancer and how it can be prevented. As part of our preventive programme, we regularly hold lectures and camps at various sites.

If you would like us to help you organize a camp or lecture, click here.

Lectures
Camps
Clinics / OPDs

Following links contain presentation slides made by us to spread awareness regarding cancer and its prevention. These slides can also be downloaded by clicking on the hyperlink below the slides.

Slides in English
Slides in Hindi

  Lectures

Our Cancer Awareness lectures arose out of the realization that most of the fear associated with cancer arose out of a lack of knowledge. We realized that people needed to be told cancer was preventable, detectable at an early stage, and curable if treated promptly.

Our lectures conducted in Hindi, English & Marathi lectures impart some general facts about cancer, discuss lifestyle correlations and lead on to describing the screening procedure. The tone is positive and reassuring, which encourages people to attend.

We conduct our Cancer Awareness lectures wherever we find a high density of people at risk, i.e. at factories, banks, offices, mills and residential localities, even slums. We start by establishing communication with recognized community leaders, and plan the whole exercise with their co-operation.

The lecture always starts with the speaker emphasizing that she is not a doctor and is only trying to share her experiences. This puts everyone at ease and creates a relaxed atmosphere. The lecture covers general information about cancer, different kinds of cancer, warning signs and symptoms, known causes, risk factors, effect of lifestyle, diet and cancer correlation, dangers of tobacco abuse, cancer status in India, women’s cancers, head and neck cancers & myths.

Awareness efforts have taken CPAA beyond corporate offices and factories to hotels, police stations, jails, and even red light areas. Alliances have been worked out with organizations such as CORO (Community Out Reach Organisation), CORP (Community Out Reach Programme), YUVA (Youth Voluntary Organisation) and Stree Mukti Sanghatana (Rag-pickers)to reach the underprivileged groups.

If you would like more information about CPAA’s Cancer Awareness lectures, or would like to hold a lecture at your workplace or residential locality, click here.

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Camps

According to the World Health Organisation, most cases of cancer are detected only in the advanced stages, when they are untreatable. This is especially true in developing countries. The fact is that in the case of Head and Neck cancers, Cervical cancer and Breast cancer, i.e., the most common cancers in India, there are proven screening methods to catch the disease at an early stage when it is curable. The problem is that the patient at this stage is totally asymptomatic and will not, in the normal course of affairs, consult a doctor.

CPAA’s Early Detection and Awareness programme was developed from recognition of the need for a patient-friendly, non-invasive screening mechanism that would be effective enough to detect cancer early, yet be non-intimidating so that people would be willing to come in and be tested. Typically, camps follow our awareness lectures, either immediately or after a period of time. The screening consists of examination by our panel of doctors including a surgeon, a physician, a gynecologist and an ENT specialist. A blood sample is taken for CBC test and a Pap smear test is carried out for women.

Initially, the camps were organized at factory premises, the idea being to reach out to people with a perceived high risk. Over the years they have become more and more popular, and have been held in banks, mills and factories, Industrial areas like Wagle Estate,  at residential colonies from Ulhas Nagar to Navy Nagar, at INS Shivaji at Lonavla, at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, at colleges, for groups like Mitra Mandals, Mahila Samaj, for street children at shelters like Amchi Kholi and commercial sex workers etc.

Clinics / OPDs : 

Well Women's Clinic is an awareness/diagnostic effort for women from the lower economic strata. CPAA provides follow- up services with free investigations including the expensive sono-mammography to take a suspected patient through to diagnosis. Taking cognizance of the growing incidence of prostrate cancer in men, we recently launched in 2005, the Well Men's Clinic, a diagnostic facility for males.

The organisation runs two diagnostic clinics and pathology labs. One at Prabhadevi and the other at Naigon, Mumbai. These clinics offers cancer screening three times a week, check-ups by an ENT specialist, a general physician, gynecologist and surgeon. Pathological tests are also conducted here and investigative procedures such as mammography, ultra-sonography and ECG are also available.

The organization also conducts free awareness lectures & ENT screening camps open to public in the last week of May every year to commemorate World No Tobacco Day. CPAA has also opened tobacco counselling cells and screening centers in four major jails in Mumbai for its inmates. 

Statistics show that the most common cancers in India - the Head and Neck cancers, Cervical cancer and Breast cancer – are the very cancers that can be easily detected at an early stage. Oral cancers show up in the form of white patches (leucoplakia), black patches (melanoplakia), red patches (erythroplakia), submucous fibrosis and difficulty in fully opening the mouth. These can be easily detected during an oral examination. Cervical cancer can be detected through a Pap smear, a painless test, which involves scraping cells from the cervix during a pelvic examination. A microscopic examination of the smear can identify abnormal cells even in a pre-cancerous stage (dysplasia). A firm lump, small changes or discharge from the nipples are early signs of breast tumour. At the clinic, women are instructed on how to perform an effective Breast Self Examination.

Cancer screening is available at a cost of Rs. 100 (first check-up) and Rs. 50(follow-up checkup) at these clinics. Of the 75,000 healthy individuals screened by CPAA over the years, 200 cases of early cancer have been diagnosed with cancer.

CPAA has been conducting OPDs for the early detection of cancer, for a long time. Until 1987, we used to hold our OPDs at St. Elizabeth Nursing Home. As activities expanded, we felt the need for our own premises. Serendipitously, around the same time, we obtained permission to use two rooms in the Red Cross campus at Agripada. This campus had been donated to the Red Cross when Adams Wylie, a New Zealander left India after independence. The structures, which have since been declared Heritage Buildings, included a leprosy unit, a dental and medical clinic and residential quarters for employees. We set up screening facilities here, which later expanded to include the Rehabilitation Centre, a full fledged Social Welfare Department, and a new Pathology laboratory to analyse the blood and Pap smear test samples collected during camps.

Currently, CPAA conducts diagnostic OPDs at the Suman Ramesh Tulsiani Diagnostic & Rehabilitation Center Prabhadevi, on Wednesdays and Thursdays between 2 and 3.30 pm. This Cancer Screening Examination, which covers examination by an ENT specialist, a surgeon, a physician, and a gynecologist. Blood sampling is done for everyone, and a Pap smear test for women. For reasons of safety, only disposable equipment is used. These test results are acceptable qualification for the Cancer Insurance Policy.

As time went by, the pressure on the then OPD facilities at Agripada increased, and we began looking out for space to expand. We heard about space available at the Naigaon Municipal Maternity Hospital, approached the Bombay Municipal Corporation, and after much persuasion, obtained space (and permission!) to start an early detection centre in 1994.

The centre boasts of state of the art facilities for all blood tests, Pap smear tests, X-ray, sonography, mammography, and colposcopy. Cancer Screening OPDs are held here every Tuesday from 2 to 3.30 pm. Other facilities are made available at subsidised rates. The Lila Kishanchand Shahani Clinical Diagnostic Center, made possible by a generous grant from the Shahani Trust, was inaugurated in 1998.

"I want to make the laboratory self sufficient," says Mrs. Valsa Peter, who was the first recruit at the Agripada laboratory, and is now the Head of the Naigaon laboratory. "We need to develop low cost, large volume tests to make the laboratory a commercial success so that we can eventually support all diagnostic functions."

For more information about CPAA’s Early Detection and Awareness Programme for cancer or would like to host a camp at your workplace or residential locality, click here.

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