Tag Archives: #hepatitis

Hepatitis Awareness Month

For Hepatitis, Prevention is the Best Intervention

The month of May is titled as “Hepatitis Awareness Month”, as a proactive step to bring together various federal, non-federal, social groups, and public health care groups across the world for spreading awareness about hepatitis infection. As described by the World Health Organization (WHO), hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver caused by drugs, alcohol use, or certain medical conditions. But in most cases, it is caused by a virus. This is known as viral hepatitis. Currently, there are 5 main hepatitis viruses, referred to as types A, B, C, D and E, but the most common forms are hepatitis A, B, and C.  Hepatitis is a global concern as it leads to more than1.4 million deaths every year.  Hepatitis is a relatively silent disease in its acute phase, its symptoms often go unnoticed till the disease is progressed to a chronic and often a fatal stage. In its advanced stage, hepatitis can result in fatal complications like liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, or liver failure. Bridging the knowledge gap about hepatitis (its causes, symptoms, and prevention) among the masses as well as healthcare professionals is the key to reduce the global burden of the disease.

Hepatitis awareness month is an initiative to bring in all stakeholders of the healthcare industry to alliance together in spreading awareness about hepatitis. Enabling the people to identifyviral hepatitis as a critical health concern and providing better healthcare facilities to all the patients with hepatitis are the prime objectives of this collation. The key strategies that are promoted for spreading the awareness are:

  • Campaigns: As an age-old method of spreading awareness, campaigning about hepatitis is a dynamic tool in spreading the word.Patient stories, supporting videos, fact sheets, posters, templates, infographics, customizable flyers, infographics, promotional badges and bands, on the spot quizzes, and street plays are few modalities that could be used for campaigning at institutional and community levels.
  • Digital tools: Using digital media like television, radio,ormobile messagesfor sharing informationabout hepatitis, its risk factors, and vaccines.
  • Social Media: Various social media platforms are used to share information about various campaigns, resources, publications, news updates, and latest updates on hepatitis. This acts as an open platform for masses and healthcare professionals to share knowledge and experience about the disease. Any user can easily join the conversation by using hashtags #HepAware, #HepTestingDay, and #hepatitis.
  • Proclamations: Atinstitutional and community level,several proclamations related to hepatitis such as hepatitis awareness day, hepatitis awareness week, or hepatitis screening day can be initiated to generate awareness among people at the specific level.
  • Free hepatitis risk assessments and testing: Various healthcare institutions, public health care centres, community health groups, and private hospitals run a day/week long free hepatitis risk assessment and testing camps. The sole idea of these camps is to enable the masses to identify the risk factors for hepatitis infection and prevention strategies for the same.Self-assessment forms and professional diagnostic checks are the components for this risk assessment and testing programs.

Viral hepatitis is a preventable disease. Effective and timely vaccination among the high-risk group and all infants is highly recommended by healthcare professionals. Providing cheap vaccination and encouraging people to get vaccinated are crux steps in halting the endemic of hepatitis across the globe.

As said earlier, prevention is the best treatment; the statement holds true for hepatitis. The best way to combat this lethal disease is to make people aware about how it spreads, what are the early signs, what can be done to prevent it, and what should be done if one gets hepatitis. As a member of healthcare industry, we all should actively take up the responsibility to spread awareness about hepatitis in our own way. Remember to be informed is to be safe!

Awareness is the first step towards prevention of viral hepatitis. As a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity,Turacoz Healthcare Solutions wants to raise awareness for prevention of this disease through this blog. We are a medical communication company in Delhi. Our medical writers are well-versed with recent advances in various therapeutic areas which give them a head start in various publication, clinical research and regulatory writing projects.

#LiverCancerAwarenessMonth

Liver cancer: Treatment

Liver cancer treatment is generally based on the stage of disease and the patient response to treatment. Treatment is individualized as each patient respond differently. Based on the disease stage, the size, number, tumor location, other co-morbidities, overall health and well-being, the treatment is decided. Based on the complexity of the tumor a team of specialists are associated in the treatment. The team involves surgeons, oncologists, radiologists, gastroenterologists, radiation therapists, and pathologists.

Liver cancer is generally identified in patients who come to the hospitals with damaged livers. Also as the liver cancer stage increases the side effects also may become worse. Therefore, in order to be safe, best options to treat liver cancer should be chosen.

Treatment options

  • The best treatment option is to remove the liver surgically but only <10% of the patients are suitable for surgery. The reasons can be due to cirrhosis (due to bleeding, infection or liver failure), more tumors that are widespread to remove all. Even after successful surgery, there are some tiny deposits of tumors which are not even visible for the scans or surgery. The survival rate of patients having the surgery is >5 years.
  • Other option when there is no evidence of the spread of liver cancer includes liver transplantation. This method involves transplantation of a diseased liver with a healthy liver from a donor. Recent advances in transplantation techniques and immune medications have made transplantation the first choice for patients with cirrhosis and small tumors. The survival rate is >70% with >5 years.
  • Other possible options include injecting the liver with a toxic material such as pure alcohol or chemotherapy in order to destroy it, cryotherapy, radiofrequency ablation etc. These techniques are used in patients with only one or two small tumors, in general.
  • Chemoembolization which involves chemotherapy drugs which can be given directly into the blood vessel that feeds the liver and the tumors. This technique requires a hospital admission, and can cause pain, fever, nausea, and liver damage.
  • Radioembolization or selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) which is almost similar to chemoembolization in which microscopic radioactive particles are used instead of chemotherapy injected into the blood vessels. This is as effective as chemoembolization for small and multiple tumors.
  • Radiation therapy which uses high-dose energy like X-rays aimed at a small part of the body and can frequently destroy cancer cells. In some cases other techniques like conformal or stereotactic radiation may be useful.

Liver cancer: outcomes

The best treatment options of all discussed above includes surgery and transplantation. Physicians with the help of several tests and scans determines the turmors. Although local treatments such as radiofrequency ablation, cryoablation, and chemoembolization can kill tumors that are visible, “new” tumors may develop which are invisible to the scan or tests. Also, the cirrhosis and conditions that gave rise to the initial cancers will still be there even after successful treatment, so more cancers might actually develop later.

Liver cancer: Prevention

For treating cancers, it not only depends on the type of treatment but also on financial strength. With the growing costs of the machines and drugs one should be able to overcome these. These kind of situations not effect at personal level of the patient.

Hepatoma can be a preventable disease. Hepatitis, alcohol abuse, and obesity can be avoided through

  • Social
  • Medical
  • Lifestyle changes

Also with this transition, there are some chances of improvement observed in the survival rates of liver cancer and hence there is a cause for optimisim.

Liver cancer: Prognosis

The outcome of hepatoma is extremely variable and depends as much upon the state of the liver and the person’s health as on any characteristic of the cancer itself. Therapies such as radiofrequency ablation, chemoembolization, cryoablation, radiosurgery, radioembolization, and systemic therapy are frequently performed sequentially over a patient’s lifetime, depending upon the changes as the disease progresses. Average survival for patients who are able to be treated with these methods is between one and two years.

Multiple techniques can be used in the extension of a patient’s life, while keeping them well and happy. Many drugs have been introduced for the treatment recognizing the molecular defects causing the cancer and few others are still under research. The evolution and improvement in radiologic and interventional technology has helped millions of people in prolongation of their lives. Also the survival rates was almost doubled since early 1990s. Increased and improved medical, scientific, and pharmaceutical areas helped to gain more attention for this disease and still make a better future.

Health tips:

  • Maintain a healthy weight
  • Regular exercise
  • Avoid fad diets (weight loss plans)
  • Limit in the intake of fat
  • Moderate alcohol consumption
  • Regular liver check-ups
  • Quit smoking
  • Be aware of drug risks
  • Vaccinations for hepatitis B

Turacoz Healthcare Solutions as a socially responsible company spreads the word and awareness and looks forward to collaboration or associations with other agencies/companies with similar goals and aspirations. We have a skilled and competent team of medical writers, clinicians, researchers and biostatisticians. Our clients include major pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and healthcare professionals. Our experience has been in supporting publications, creating regulatory documents, conducting observational studies, designing and creating for print and digital marketing as well as customizing sessions on medical writing.