Early diagnosis can cut breast cancer deaths

ISLAMABAD:

President Dr Arif Alvi and First Lady Samina Alvi on Tuesday called for raising awareness across the board about breast cancer and its early diagnosis to overcome the mortality rate in Pakistan, the highest in South Asia.

They said this during an interactive session with senior journalists and anchorpersons at the Aiwan-e-Sadr on Tuesday.

President Alvi and First Lady Samina stressed the need for sensitising the public about the disease, particularly in October - which is internationally observed as Breast Cancer Awareness Month - also known as Pinktober.

Every year in Pakistan at least 90,000 women suffer from breast cancer with 40,000 deaths, said President Dr Alvi, adding that this meant that the mortality rate for breast cancer in Pakistan was 45%.

By comparison, the global average was around two to four per cent.

The president said early detection not only ensures a much lesser cost of treatment but also greatly enhances chances for survival of the patient.

To raise awareness, he said, the government send awareness messages through cellular public messaging apart from establishing a telephone helpline to provide prompt information to patients.

He stressed the media’s role in effectively highlighting the campaign by giving air time to cancer patients, survivors and specialist medical experts to guide the public on the issue.

President Alvi said a man-inclusive approach in raising awareness about breast cancer was equally significant to discourage social taboos about the disease.

Moreover, he said that content related to breast cancer awareness will also be included in the syllabus of Lady Health Workers to send messages in remote areas, particularly women.

Samina Alvi urged women to be vigilant about the initial symptoms and risk factors of breast cancer as thousands have lost their lives every year due to lack of awareness.

She also shared details of her upcoming, extensive campaign scheduled to mark Pinktober. As part of the campaign, Samina said that she will be visiting various cities across Pakistan, including Multan, Peshawar and other cities to raise awareness through seminars in collaboration with schools, colleges and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Prof Dr Rukhsana Rasheed, who has spent 35 years conducting surgeries on breast cancer, said that women needed to be sensitised that breast cancer was “not a harbinger of death, but a curable disease”, provided it is detected in the early stages.

Breast cancer patients have around a 95 per cent survival rate if diagnosed at stage-1, she said, adding that it fell to 90 per cent at stage-2 and 60-70 per cent at stage-3.

Since stages-3 and 4 are more common in Pakistan, therefore early detection is important, she stressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2020.