By Caleb Hellerman and Laila Johnson-Salami
(CNN) — The small business owner was diagnosed with appendicitis. The university lecturer and the government clerk, both struggling with stomach pain for more than a year, were told they had ulcers. In each case, the real problem turned out to be colorectal cancer. By the time they were diagnosed, all three required major surgery and nearly a year of debilitating chemotherapy treatments.
These patients live in and around Ile-Ife, a city in southwestern Nigeria, where they shared their stories with CNN. All three were ultimately treated at the Obafemi Awolowo University teaching hospital by Dr. Olusegun Alatise, a professor of surgery.
When he began surgical training in the early 2000s, Alatise was taught that colorectal cancer was rare in sub-Saharan Africa. But it didn’t match what he saw with his own eyes.
“It was supposed to be very rare, but we [the teaching hospital] were seeing a case every week,” he said. “We are talking about an exponential increase in the incidence of colorectal cancer.”
The picture in Nigeria is starkly different from that in the US or western Europe, where 2 in 3 colorectal cancer patients survive at least five years beyond their diagnosis. In Nigeria, it’s just 1 in 5. The biggest reason for the discrepancy, said Alatise, is that patients in Nigeria tend to seek treatment much later in the course of the disease.
“A majority only come to the teaching hospital for treatment when the disease has spread,” he said. “They have symptoms that were neglected. They’d be having rectal bleeding for a year, but everybody would be treating them with other medicines.”
With its aging buildings and visibly worn exam rooms, the OAU hospital doesn’t fit central casting’s idea of a state-of-the-art cancer center, but Alatise has helped build partnerships that are shaping care not just in Nigeria but around the world.
That part of Alatise’s journey started in 2009, when he secured a spot in a program to train international physicians to modernize cancer care in their home countries. It was based at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Alatise was the first African surgeon to apply.
In the months he spent in New York, Alatise learned new surgical techniques and formed a fast friendship with Dr. Peter Kingham, an American surgeon who had previously worked in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Sierra Leone, and who himself was just finishing a surgical oncology fellowship. In 2011, after returning to Nigeria, Alatise invited Kingham for a visit of several weeks, in what would soon become an annual routine. By then, Kingham had helped establish the Global Cancer Disparities Initiative at Memorial Sloan Kettering. In 2013, the two men founded the African Research Group for Oncology (ARGO), to improve training programs and expand opportunities for Africa-based research.
“The goal is to do clinically meaningful research,” Kingham said. “At MSK, we do a ton of esoteric research, most of which is important, but it’s also a luxury. [In Nigeria] we don’t have the same luxury. Everything we do, we have to ask, ‘Can this really change the course of what happens to a patient?’ ”
The effort has grown to encompass more than two dozen sites in Nigeria, with more than 60 staffers and nearly 10,000 patients taking part in various research programs. At least four grants from the US National Institutes of Health have supported work by ARGO, with colorectal cancer as a major focus.
Globally, as a killer, colorectal cancer ranks second only to lung cancer. What’s more, its incidence is steadily increasing, driven by a surge of cases in young adults. Colorectal cancer rates are higher in the US and Europe than they are in Africa or South Asia, but the gap is shrinking.
Genetics, smoking and alcohol use are risk factors, but Kingham says changing diets are the biggest cause of the global increase. “A Western diet is strongly associated with colorectal cancer, and so are processed foods. That’s the curse of development,” he said.
Alatise says the typical Nigerian diet has shifted dramatically in recent years. “Even people that come from a rural community are mostly eating processed food, because processed food is regarded as the rich man’s food, whereas a high-fiber diet and traditional foods are seen as a poor man’s food,” he said. “Abroad, every rich man is trying to add that fiber to their diet, but in Africa, they’re trying to be more westernized.”
As a practical matter, Alatise saw improving screening as a faster way to improve outcomes for patients, compared with convincing them to change what they eat.
In 2014, he and colleagues at ARGO launched the first of three pilot projects to see whether they could catch cases earlier. In the first study, 362 patients with rectal bleeding were offered free colonoscopies. Nearly 20% had colorectal cancer. Crucially, 74% of the cases were found at a potential curable stage, double the historical rate. The research team also determined that while rectal bleeding alone did not reliably predict colorectal cancer, it did if it appeared along with weight loss and a change in bowel habits.
This was a valuable insight, to better allocate scarce resources in a country where the standard cost of a colonoscopy is half the average monthly income. Other ARGO-led studies concluded that less expensive screening tests, which are widely used in the US and look for blood in stool, are too costly to implement at scale in Nigeria due to the number of follow-up colonoscopies that would be required for people who test positive.
More recently, Alatise and colleagues took on the problem that had so frustrated him since his days as a young surgeon: patients whose symptoms are missed or ignored. Initially, the group aired jingles on the radio and distributed flyers around Ife, stressing the importance of early detection. Then they trained providers at a network of local clinics where patients receive basic medical care.
The information was simple: reminding providers about the combination of symptoms – bleeding and weight loss – that were so telling in the first study. “They were told more about how to identify these symptoms and how to get a history from the patient,” and how to quickly refer the person for further screening at a hospital if needed, explained Dr. Tajudeen Mohammed, a surgeon who helped with the project.
Simple as the messages were, conversations could be difficult. The patients who met with CNN all said their previous doctors treated cancer as taboo. Two said doctors never even told them they had cancer, even after their diagnoses; both learned the news from family members. Mayowa Ajayi, a government clerk, says he had never even heard of colorectal cancer before he landed in the hospital. And a university lecturer, 44, who was given anti-ulcer medication for months even as she endured intense pain and trouble with bowel movements, asked to remain anonymous because revealing her illness would cause too much trouble with colleagues and friends.
Chris Bamidele, a research associate who coordinates studies on colorectal cancer for ARGO, says many patients are reluctant to seek help. “For some people, I think it’s fear, and for others, there’s a religious ideology around things like [cancer],” he said. Others lack transportation or can’t afford the cost of a doctor’s visit and turn to herbal remedies instead, Bamidele said.
Despite such hurdles, the nurses and doctors behind the pilot program say it shows that their messages worked. More than 300 people were referred for colonoscopies – which were offered free in the pilot program – which identified four cases of early-stage cancer and another 13 cases of high-risk precancerous polyps that were easily removed. Alatise says that included two senior colleagues who signed up for screenings out of curiosity. “They could have ended up dead from colorectal cancer, but we removed the polyps, and now those guys are doing very well,” he said.
But there are hurdles to broader implementation, starting with cost. Alatise says the research group is trying to expand education for health providers while working in tandem with Memorial Sloan Kettering and the University of Alberta to develop a screening test that could diagnose colorectal cancer by looking for metabolites in urine.
The research isn’t limited to screening. Earlier this year, Alatise’s group launched a trial to treat colorectal cancer patients with tislelizumab, a type of drug known as an immune checkpoint inhibitor, which helps the body’s own immune system recognize and fight cancer cells. It’s one of just a handful of immunotherapy trials ever conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on prior studies, Kingham says, tislelizumab appears to be most effective in patients with a specific genetic signature – a signature that is three times more prevalent in Nigeria than in the US. “That means it’s three times more likely to benefit patients there,” he said.
Along with improving care for patients in Nigeria, Kingham says the partnership with ARGO is a clear opportunity to help patients everywhere. One reason: While the cost of many medical procedures – like colonoscopies – can be a stretch for ordinary Nigerians, they can be offered in clinical trials for a fraction of what it costs in higher-income countries.That means research dollars go further.
But such calculations were only in the background on the summer day where the university lecturer recounted her health struggles over the past five years. She beat the odds, despite her late diagnosis. Today she’s cancer-free but urges others not to wait as long as she did. “Getting screened isn’t comfortable, but the discomfort is way less than the problem of becoming a cancer patient,” she said. “I encourage people to embrace it.”
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
‘Don’t ignore the warning signs’: A message pays off in Nigeria News Channel 3-12.
Hence then, the article about don t ignore the warning signs a message pays off in nigeria was published today ( ) and is available on News channel ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( ‘Don’t ignore the warning signs’: A message pays off in Nigeria )
Also on site :
- Olympic Figure Skater Joining ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Had Her Best-Ever Performance to This ’80s Classic
- KATSEYE Fans Are Lighting Up Their Wildworld Tour With Official Lightsticks — Here’s Where to Get Yours
- Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem Remembered by Madonna, Olivia Rodrigo, Jennifer Lopez & More Musicians: ‘The O.G. Baddie’