Awareness, Breast Self-Examination And Regular Screening Examination Can Change The Life of Breast Cancer Patients

The number of breast cancer is rising very fast in India. Experts are worried about the trend of breast cancer in India. Majority of underlying cases of breast cancer are same, but every region has its own uniqueness for breast cancer. In India most of the people diagnosed from breast cancer are below 50 years of age (almost 48 – 50% are below 50 years of age), which is a very disturbing trend. An overall rise in cases of breast cancer year-by-year and survival rate not showing much changes is also a worrying characteristic here in our country. Survival is less because most of the cases come in advanced stage, as the people are not aware about the changes in the body. Most of the females even if notice the lump in breast, tend to ignore it to be cancerous. Therefore, to increase the survival rate for breast cancer patients, we have to detect it early, and this requires measures to develop the awareness about the breast cancer in general population and promote self breast examination at 18 years of age and annual mammography from 40 years and above. Purpose of self breast examination and annual mammography is to detect cancer at early and at a curable stage. So that the survivors can have a long life free of cancer. Breast screening means “a study is done on a regular basis, detecting any signs or symptoms of cancerous component of breast”. Awareness is the patients formulary for regular self breast examination, screening, mammography and in selected cases breast MRI. This year when Covid-19 is already confining us to our homes, let’s pledge to help all females near us know their worth and value themselves. Let’s make them aware that we can fight breast cancer and shall win it over only when we start early!! Dr. Kumardeep Dutta Choudhary, Fortis Hospital, Noida.