late presentation

I see lot of patients present in Outpatient Department with advanced stage disease even now when awareness is increasing regarding the possibility of potential cure in various cancers. Patients and their attendants have still lot of fear and apprehensions! There is lot of work to be done to remove this fear from people so that they can attend to a physician early and get a chance of cure. I find that social factors are playing a heavy role in the delay of both diagnosis and treatment along with the other uncertainties such as accessibility to healthcare.