World Cancer Day will be marked on Thursday with a focus on prevention. Cynthia Busuttil spoke to two people who contracted the disease that kills 7.6 million people per year and lived to tell the tale.

Owen Portelli's brown eyes are glued to the television screen. He does not look up when his mother enters the room. His small hands are tightly holding the Playstation controller, his fingers deftly moving joysticks and clicking buttons.

Owen, four, is a cancer survivor. Just like he beats the enemy in the game, he has beaten hepoblastoma, a rare liver tumour.

The ordeal for the young Fgura family started almost two years ago, when Owen was a toddler.

"He started complaining of pain in his back and side," his mother, Suzanne, said.

His paediatrician did not see anything out of the ordinary. Neither did the family doctor. But when Owen woke up complaining of the same pain in the middle of the night, Ms Portelli decided to seek a third opinion. Yet again, the doctor could not find anything wrong.

When she took Owen to the Health Centre because of wheezing, Ms Portelli told the nurse he had complained about his back again.

It was a clear case of mother's intuition saving the day - the white lie led to Owen's diagnosis seven months later, exactly 20 months after Ms Portelli's mother died of cancer.

"The radiologist saw a stain on the ultrasound and she asked whether we had spoken to the doctor. I knew that something was wrong," she said.

After more tests, Ms Portelli and her husband Brian were given the bad news. The tumour was the size of a tennis ball, and doctors suspect that it could have been developing since birth. She explained that the liver had rolled up, which meant doctors could not feel the tumour.

Owen started his chemotherapy, before being flown to a hospital in Birmingham in September 2008 to have 40 per cent of his liver removed. The family was helped financially by Puttinu Cares, a charitable organisation that assists young cancer patients and their sufferers.

After 17 days living out of a suitcase, the family returned home and soon after received the good news - Owen had got rid of the cancer. "I wanted to shout it out over a loudspeaker."

Ms Portelli believes parents have to be strong for their children. "Children are very perceptive and realise when something is wrong."

Keith Abela, 38, has also fought a successful battle against a rare cancer. It all started with a strange and persistent cough in November 2006. A non-smoker, Mr Abela thought something was not right when he was still coughing after four weeks and saw a doctor, who ordered an X-ray.

The result was shocking - there was a mass in the thymus gland, next to his heart.

He describes his first reaction as one of shock and disbelief, but there was no denial. "Denial works against you because you delay treatment."

Within a week, by the time he was operated on to remove the tumour, the mass had burst and attached itself to tissue surrounding the heart known as the pericardial sac. In fact, the surgeon had to remove part of this.

The ordeal was not over and tests in the UK found the cancer, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, in two other sites. Mr Abela started six courses of very strong chemotherapy at London's Royal Marsden Hospital, leaving his two daughters, aged one and six, in Malta.

"Thankfully they both had a passport and could be brought up to see me. I would have gone crazy not seeing my children for six weeks," he said.

He is thankful that he had health insurance that allowed him to take the treatment abroad since the chemo he needed was not available in Malta. He also needed two Positron Emission Tomography scans to show exactly how the tumour was functioning, which was not yet available in Malta - last year it was introduced in the private sector although the government has promised to procure the equipment.

"Without them they would not have known how much the tumours shrank and that the chemo had worked," he said, adding that people should invest in international health insurance to be covered for a rainy day.

Mr Abela is now in remission, although he still goes to London every six months for a check up.

"People should not despair. There are different treatments available today. They should have a goal and work towards it." He kept photos of his family beside him and was determined to get better for their sake.

When he came back from the UK, Mr Abela created the Cancer Patients Support Group.

"Children are being catered for very well by Puttinu - I wanted to help adults, including giving them the needed information and eventually to financially help patients who need to go to London and their families," he said.

Mr Abela can be contacted by e-mail on info@cancerpatientsupportgroup.com.

Local cancer cases on the increase

New cancer cases shot up by more than 400 between 1996 and 2006, figures from the Malta National Cancer Registry show. And oncologist Stephen Brincat believes we will be seeing more increases in the coming years.

This, Dr Brincat said, was mainly due to increased smoking in women and increased promiscuity - two things which are preventable.

"The best thing one can do to protect one's health is stop smoking," Dr Brincat said, adding that the effect of atmospheric pollution compared with cigarettes was legligible.

New cases of lung cancer in women have almost doubled in an 11-year period - from 14 in 1996 to 27 in 2006. Cases of cervical cancer have fluctuated between four and 13 over the same period, but experts are fearing they will shoot up because of promiscuity, despite the availability of a vaccine against the sexually-transmitted, cancer-causing Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).

He also highlighted the importance of curbing obesity, another important contributor of cancer.

Dr Brincat said lifestyle choices had not been alone in contributing to an increase in cancer. The fact that people live longer also puts people at greater risk.

According to the International Union Against Cancer some 40 per cent of cancers can be prevented.

The organisation recommends stopping smoking and avoiding exposure to second-hand smoke, limiting alcohol consumption, avoiding excessive sun exposure, maintaining a reasonable weight through healthy eating and regular exercise and protection against cancer-causing infections, like HPV.