Rise in patients with respiratory disease

Nadira Gunatilleke

The number of patients with respiratory disease is increasing in Sri Lanka annually while around 4,000 new lung cancer patients are detected annually, doctors said.

They said the number of undetected patients is not known. "Around 300 of them are women and the rest are male smokers. Females get it through passive smoking," they said at a press briefing at the Family Planning Bureau auditorium in Colombo yesterday.

The doctors said 90 percent of male lung cancer patients are smokers. "Only around 250 lung cancer patients (out of 4,000) can be operated. Smokers have many other diseases like diabetes, stroke, high cholesterol level and high blood pressure in addition to lung cancer. They have a very low immunity and take a longer time to recover from operations,injuries etc," they said. The doctors said males become impotent due to smoking.

"There are 60 cancerous substances in cigarettes and thousands of other chemicals in cigarettes," the doctors said. Welisara Chest Hospital Director Dr P Wijesuriya praised Minister Maithripala Sirisena's decision to make it compulsory for cigarette manufacturers to display a pictorial warning on cigarette packets on negative impacts of smoking.

"Many countries have implemented this law. No one has an ethical right to hide the negative impact on health caused by any product," he said.