Awareness, early detection help fight breast cancer: Expert

Visakhapatnam: Breast cancer is a serious health concern growing globally. With one woman getting diagnosed every four minutes in India makes it the commonest cancer, said Dr V Muralikrishna, surgical oncologist and managing director of Mahatma Gandhi Cancer Hospital and Research Institute.

Raising awareness about breast cancer at the media conference held here on Tuesday, the surgical oncologist said 50 per cent of the women get diagnosed in advanced stages resulting in a mortality rate of around 45 per cent.

About 48 per cent of breast cancers in India are occurring in women below 50 years of age and with high numbers of the bad prognostic triple negative subtype. This calls for an increased awareness about the disease in India along with prevention mechanisms and early detection followed by proper treatment, informed Dr Muralikrishna.

Sedentary lifestyle, late marriages, delayed childbirths, lack of awareness, confined access to screening and treatment are considered to be some of the contributing factors. “Breast cancer is preventable in certain cases and curable in most of the cases. However, early detection and evidence based multidisciplinary treatment hold the key,” Dr Muralikrishna explained.

Apart from playing a concrete role in creating awareness about cancers, Mahatma Gandhi Cancer Hospital and Research Institute treated more than 8,500 cases of breast cancer for the past 18 years.