Cultural touch: Apart from helping patients, Anti-Cancer Society Chairman Dr Ko Wing-man is also interested in reading books on Chinese history and the chiu chow culture.

The Anti-Cancer Society, set up in 1963, aims to raise public awareness of the disease and help cancer patients and their relatives. Dr Ko Wing-man, the society's chairman, shares with news.gov.hk what most impresses him about the society.

Dr Ko worked with the society on public education and patient support when he was with the Hospital Authority. He joined the society after he left the authority at the end of 2004.

Mutual support

"One thing that has struck me most is the society's patient support group, Cancer Comrades, which is effective in promoting patients' mutual support. Newly diagnosed cancer patients sometimes find it very difficult to accept the ordeal that they have to go through, anti-cancer treatment which may cause mutilation to the body or severe side effects," Dr Ko said.

"Cancer Comrades is very important in terms of providing an opportunity for cancer patients to share their experience with the newly diagnosed patients and to encourage and support them throughout the treatment."

Cancer is the No. 1 killer in Hong Kong, with about 21,000 newly diagnosed cases recorded a year. It accounted for 31.6% of all deaths in 2004. The top five causes of cancer deaths were lung cancer, liver cancer, colorectal cancer, stomach cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer.

Of the 11,791 people who died of cancer in 2004, 68.3% were aged 65 and above, 26.1% aged 45-64, and 5.4% aged 15-44.

Rising trend

Dr Ko said the aging population, people's hectic lifestyle and poor diet may lead to a rise in the number of cancer cases. Late detection of the disease also affects the effectiveness of treatment.

"The public awareness of the disease is quite high. But if you talk about how much they know about the details of cancer treatment that will be required for different types of cancer, and how to detect cancer at the early stage, I would think that there will be much more work for us to do.

"To tackle the rising number and mortality rate of cancer patients, I think one of our major tasks will be to concentrate on, among other things, educating the public and offering them information, so that they know the causes of different types of cancer and how to detect cancer earlier so the treatment can be more effective."

Serving the Anti-Cancer Society for nearly two years, Dr Ko said both the community and professionals in the medical sector are supportive of the society's work. However, it still faces challenges.

Limited resources

"Common to all non-government organisations, we face a difficult challenge in terms of raising enough resources to cover the needs in our different areas of work," Dr Ko said.

"The Anti-Cancer Society aims to provide a full and comprehensive range of services, from public education, early cancer detection, cancer treatment and rehabilitation, to supporting researches as well as patients' mutual help."

To meet its funding needs, the group does fundraising in the community. A charity event is slated on September 16 to raise funds for colorectal cancer patients. For details, click here.