JawaPos.com – When a person enters 50 years of age, a person has the status of a pre-elderly or elderly person. At that age, a number of diseases start to become a threat, one of which is blood cancer.
The death rate in Indonesia is dominated by non-communicable diseases (NCDs). According to the 2018 Indonesian Basic Health Research, most of NCDs such as cancer, stroke, kidney disease, joint disease, DM, heart disease, hypertension, and being overweight or obese, showed an increasing trend compared to the previous report in 2013.
In the Johnson & Johnson webinar, Indonesia Commemorating World Blood Cancer Day, Wednesday (8/6), a specialist in internal medicine consultant hematology oncology dr. Nadia Ayu Mulansari, SpPD-KHOM explained that blood cancer can be classified into three groups. The three are Lymphoma, Leukemia, and Multiple Myeloma.
Why
Not yet known for sure. One mechanism that is thought to be related is the decline in adaptive immunity associated with increasing age. So that the risk of developing blood cancer will increase in old age.
“The exact cause of blood cancer is still unknown, but it is multifactorial,” said dr. Nadia.
Symptoms
Some of the symptoms that are considered alarming include recurrent fever and unexplained weight loss. A definite diagnosis of blood cancer will be established by a hematologist and medical oncologist.
One of the diseases that attack the elderly is blood cancer. Blood accounts for about 8 percent of our normal body weight and serves to supply oxygen, nutrients, hormones and antibodies throughout the body.
Blood consists of a mixture of plasma and blood cells (red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets). Cancer is caused by a dysfunction in cell growth. In a healthy body, new white blood cells are regularly produced to replace old and damaged ones, but in blood cancer patients there is excessive production or growth of blood cells.
Elderly Linkage and Blood Cancer
In more developed countries, the total number of new cases of blood cancer occurring in people aged 70 years or older, representing 45 percent of the total cases. This malignancy is closely related to age and the incidence rate increases exponentially after the age of 50 years.
Head of Medical Affairs from PT Johnson & Johnson Indonesia, dr. Rospita Dian further said that awareness of blood cancer in general is not as high as that of solid organ cancer. Blood cancer that often attacks the elderly often does not show specific symptoms or signs. So there is a potential for delay in diagnosis.
“Thus, early detection is very important to get early treatment and regular monitoring to optimize the success of therapy,” explained dr. Rospita.
With the rate of aging accelerating, one of the major challenges facing all countries is ensuring the readiness of health and social systems. Aging is the result of damage to molecules and body cells over time which results in an increased risk of disease and death.