ONCOLOGIST SPEAKS : Breast cancer month: Time to reflect on the monstrous condition

The month of October is a special one for the millions of women around the world because it’s the breast cancer awareness month.

This is a top cancer among women in both developing and developed countries.

The month is used to carry out activities that will create awareness about the disease among the public so that more women are screened and for those found with the disease, are treated on time. Everyone needs to get involved, from community to national level, to try and raise voices to save lives of our sisters, mothers and daughters.

Women can survive breast cancer if it’s diagnosed early and treated appropriately.

Unfortunately this is not possible due to a number of reasons, including lack of awareness, poverty, limited resources, inaccessibility to healthy facilities among others. This is more common in Low income countries Like Tanzania. More to the irony is that the incidence of the disease is on the increase in this part of the world due to the adoption of a more western life style, urbanization.

Faced with this increasing burden, we in Tanzania are reminded to take part and observe the month with a single aim--to fight breast cancer.

Round table discussions involving all stake holders are crucial to agree on the best ways to mitigate the effects of the cancer. Many will agree that increasing the screening services will help lower the number of those dying of those diseases.

Currently, many of those found with breast cancer are at a very late stage, leaving almost no room for treatment.

Mammograms as the most trusted screening tool and should be made available in many parts of this country so that more women who are at an increased risk of breast cancer are screened.

This will increase early detection, and possibly of survival. If the implementation of mammography screening is still a challenge due to funds, clinical breast screening should be rolled out in all primary health facilities.

This is very cost effective here especially as our health infrastructure system is still poor.

It is true that preventive programs are not enough on their own and hence we expect to miss some and at times over treat others.

Hence it is important in this month and for months to come, to keep calling out for more affordable standard treatment programs.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate a global increase to 24 million patients by 2,035 from the current 14.1 million of which 8.1 million die every year.

At least 44,000 people are diagnosed with various forms of cancer in Tanzania every year. Most of them go to hospital when the disease has reached an advanced stage, making it difficult to guarantee cure, according to the government statistics.

While some forms of cancer have received more attention than others, there is still need to focus on research and maintain proper registry of the cancer cases in the country. Breast cancer is among the cancers that have received a lot of attention and hence made good progress in terms of treatment options of chemotherapy.

Though the range of drugs available is wide, their availability is still challenge.

Tanzania has also made its own progress in the treatment of breast cancer as we now have more oncologist in all major cities. These experts who have been trained both locally and abroad are not only found at Ocean Road Cancer Institute but at Muhimbili, KCMC and Bugando.