October: The month of Breast Cancer Awareness

New Delhi, Thursday, October 8, 2009: October is observed all over the world as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Most women wear a pink ribbon soliciting that they are breast aware. Breast cancer is number one cancer in Delhi, Mumbai and other metro cities in India. In other parts of the country, cancer of the cervix is still the number one cancer.

Though breast cancer is still being feared as the most dangerous cancer in women, heart attack is still the number one cause of most deaths in India.

Talking in a breast awareness discussion organized at the ongoing MTNL Perfect Health Mela, Dr. P.K. Julka, Head-Department of Oncology at AIIMS, Dr. Rajesh Jain, Senior Consultant Oncology, BLK Memorial Hospital, Dr. Dinesh Pandharkar, Senior Oncologist, Batra Hospital and Dr. K.K. Aggarwal, President-Heart Care Foundation of India, said that early detection is the hallmark to cure breast cancer. Breast cancer is more common in women who are obese, consume alcohol, are smokers and attain early menarche and late menopause, and gene mutations. There are certain familial cases of breast cancer where there is family history in the first order of relatives like mother, sister or from father side.

Special guest of the day was noted cricketer and coach Sh. Vijay Dahiya who while address the audience said that to be a sportsman, one needs to be disciplined and be away from vices like smoking, alcohol and drugs.

The breast cancer means that the woman should do self-examination of the breast once a month which does not take any time and is simple to perform without any help. One should undertake mammogram x-ray after the age of 40 on yearly basis. If there is family history, they should do a mammogram by the age of 35. Mammogram can detect a cancer atleast three years earlier than it can be palpable by clinical examinations. In younger women with dense breasts, MRI is preferable over mammogram.

To prevent breast cancer, women should not resort to western lifestyle of having fatty diet, should not smoke or take alcohol, avoid obesity and do exercises and don’t lead a sedentary life. If there is family history, regular checkup should be done.

Prophylactic removal of the normal breast in cases of breast cancer is being debated because some people are over cautious and get the breast removed. In cases where there are gene mutations some people in the West get both the breasts removed especially if they have a particular estrogen gene present. Tamoxifen has been used as chemo preventive agent in these cases.  It has its own side effects.

There are 11 lakh new cases every year in the world of breast cancer out of which one lakh new cases of breast cancer are there in India every year. Incidences are rising of breast cancer but the good thing is mortality is decreasing because of early detection and more curable tumours in early stages.

Most doctors teach the formula of 80:20 which means 80% of the patients used to come in advanced stages where the survival rate is 20% and 20% cases used to come in early stages where the survival rate is 80%. But now, with the cancer awareness, more and more people are coming in early stages in urban scenario while in rural areas, awareness is still not there which has to be created.

Ecofest held at Mela venue