Public health: Need for breast cancer awareness stressed

LAHORE: Experts stress the need to raise awareness about breast cancer symptoms to ensure early diagnosis and treatment of the disease. They say that in the absence of a concerted effort by the government in this regard healthcare specialists needed to take up the task on their own.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Dr Kazim Raza of Mayo Hospital lamented that lack of awareness about the disease prevented its identification in early stages. He said thousands of lives could be saved by organising seminars, walks, conferences and brain storming sessions about the disease. He said education institutes could play a crucial role in this regard.

Dr Raza said that one in nine women in Pakistan were likely to contract breast cancer. He said based on its severity breast cancer was divided into four stages. If diagnosed in the early stage, the disease was curable, he added.

He said awareness raising efforts should focus on self-examination techniques. “Our society does not encourage women to share such problems with their families. We should make sure that women know how to examine themselves so they can get treatment for the disease as soon as possible,” he said.

Dr Raza lamented that the government had yet to set up a centralised cancer research facility. He said preparation of a roadmap at the government-level to reduce mortality from breast cancer was need of the hour.

The Pink Ribbon Foundation, a non-government organisation working for raising awareness about the disease, reports that incidence of the disease in Pakistan is highest in all of Asia. Its research suggests that every year 40,000 women in Pakistan die of breast cancer.

Sonia Qaiser of PRF says survival rate among those diagnosed with the disease in the later stages was extremely low. “A majority of affected women get medical help when their cancer is in stage 3 or 4. Most of these women are from lower socio-economic groups,” she added.

Qaiser says her foundation has recently launched a Pink Bra initiative to promote self-examination for breast cancer among women. She says that under the initiate the PRF has designed a bra with self examination tips illustrated on it in the form of diagrammes. She says this will enable illiterate women to diagnose their disease and seek medical help in early stages.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2016.