Most people react with shock & disbelief when told they have cancer. This initial denial is a normal reaction which for some people, can last minutes, while for others days or weeks.
Cancer runs in my family. My second sister succumbed to metastatic breast cancer & died at the young age of 32, just 9 months after diagnosis. My maternal grandma died of nose cancer back in the 1960's after surviving 5 years. After my sister's death, I became more aware of cancer & immersed myself with health books to help me change my lifestyle so I would not get cancer. But I still ended up with cancer.
When I was diagnosed with nose cancer in Aug 2006, my first reaction was of disbelief. How could it be cancer? How could I have succumbed to the very disease I had worked so hard to avoid all these years? I didn't understand. I was confused. The healthy lifestyle as prescribed by health books had helped me to be in the pink of health for almost 20 years. I hardly suffered from common ailments such as colds or flus or sore throats. But I found myself suffering from the same deadly disease that had taken the lives of two of my loved ones. What went wrong?
The first question cancer patients often ask is, "How did I get cancer?" Your doctor probably gave this standard answer, "Cancer can be caused by genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors." Cancer is still a mystery disease to this day. There is no answer to the many questions many of us have.
I learn from online resources that there are risk factors for different types of cancer. A risk factor is anything that increases your risk of getting a disease. Different cancers have different risk factors. For example, unprotected exposure to strong sunlight is a risk factor for skin cancer. Smoking is a risk factor for many kinds of cancer.
But risk factors don't tell us everything. Having a risk factor, or even several risk factors, does not mean that you will get the disease. Although scientists have found several risk factors that make a person more likely to develop nose cancer, many people with this cancer have no known risk factors. Even if a patient has one or more of these risk factors, it is difficult to know whether that factor actually caused the cancer.
Unlike other squamous cell cancers of the head and neck, nose cancer does not appear to be linked to excess use of tobacco and alcohol. Scientists have found several risk factors that make a person more likely to develop nose or nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC).
Ethnic background. NPC is more common in people of Chinese or Asian ancestry. For some unknown reasons, NPC is relatively rare among Caucasians, Indians & Japanese.
Exposure to the Epstein-Barr virus. EBV is a common virus that remains dormant in most people. EBV has been associated with certain cancers, including NPC & some lymphomas. But the link between EBV infection and NPC is complex and not yet completely understood. EBV infection alone is not enough to cause NPC since infection with this virus is very common. Other factors such as a person's genes may affect how the body deals with EBV, which in turn may affect how EBV contributes to the development of NPC.
Genetic factors. A person's genes may affect their risk for NPC. For example, just as people have different blood types, they also have different tissue types. Studies have found that people with certain inherited tissue types have an increased risk of developing NPC. Tissue types affect immune responses, so this may be related to how a person's body reacts to EBV infection.
Family history. If someone in your family has nose cancer, you have a 15% to 20% risk of developing the cancer. It is not known if this is because of inherited genes, shared environmental factors (such as the same diet or living quarters) or some combination of these.
Diet. A diet high in salted fish and nitrosamines, and eating a lot of fermented food.
References :
American Cancer Society http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2X_What_are_the_risk_factors_for_nasopharyngeal_cancer_17.asp?sitearea=
MedicineNet
http://www.medicinenet.com/nasopharyngeal_cancer/article.htm
Centre for Ear Nose Throat
http://www.entdoctor.com.sg/articles/nose-cancer.html
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