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Early detection, healthier eating and better-trained medical staff are key in the fight against cancer, health experts said over the weekend at an event to mark World Cancer Day, which falls on Wednesday.

Dr. Aru Sudoyo, an oncologist at the University of Indonesia, said on Saturday that beating cancer was a matter of catching it early.

“The quicker you are diagnosed, the quicker you can find a way to treat it,” he said during a panel discussion at Jakarta’s Mochtar Riady Comprehensive Cancer Center, a facility owned by the Lippo Group, with which the Jakarta Globe is affiliated.

“Cancer is not a difficult disease to cure, as long as it’s detected early enough.”

He added that early detection was crucial in Indonesia, where cancer is among the leading causes of death.

Aru also said that by catching the disease earlier, most people now undergoing chemotherapy could have been spared the costly process and its wide range of side-effects and instead could have focused on more targeted and effective forms of treatment.

Cancer is the sixth leading cause of death in the country, and the third among non-infectious diseases behind deaths from heart disease and stroke. However, there are fewer than 1,000 registered oncologists for the nation’s population of 240 million.

Aru conceded that besides people failing to get regular tests for cancer, another hurdle to tackling the disease was a lack of properly trained health workers to consult with and support patients.

“It often happens that after a patient is diagnosed with cancer, their health condition worsens because their health practitioners lack the communication skills to provide the psychiatric support that the patients need,” he said.

Endah Ronowulan, a psychiatrist, agreed that it was important that doctors treating patients with cancer also be able to provide psychiatric support.

“It’s even been recommended by some that doctors handling cancer cases should work in tandem with a psychiatrist,” he said.

He added that patients needed to be mentally prepared to deal with the disease, because negative thinking and stress can result in their condition worsening.

“These patients get more stressed after they learn of their diagnosis because they’re worrying about the cost of the treatment, medication and so on,” he said.

“They need to think positive, act positive, talk positive, be positive and hope positive.”

Samuel Oetoro, a clinical nutritionist, said another key factor in tackling cancer was healthier eating habits.

“It’s recommended to have five servings of fruit a day to prevent any kind of cancer, but ideally we should be eating 10,” he said at Saturday’s forum.

Fruits, he pointed out, are rich in antioxidants, which in turn fight the formation of sometimes cancer-inducing “free radicals.”

Samuel also recommended consuming three to five servings of vegetables every day for the same purpose, replacing white rice with brown rice or potatoes and cutting down on red meat.

“We need to motivate ourselves to live a healthier lifestyle from right now,” he said.