Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women in Bangladesh, and many die every year because it is found late or not at all, specialists say. They are calling for a national breast cancer screening policy without delay. Saturday, 10 October, is Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
Citing the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Professor Dr Md Habibullah Talukder Raskin, chief coordinator of the Bangladesh Breast Cancer Awareness Forum, said about 12,764 women in Bangladesh are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and 6,844 die of it. He is a former professor and head of cancer epidemiology at the National Institute of Cancer Research and now project coordinator at the Gonoshasthaya community-based cancer hospital.
If breast cancer is found at an early stage, he said, 90 percent of patients have a chance of recovering with correct and complete treatment. In a low-resource country like Bangladesh, he stresses, awareness, regular breast self-examination, breastfeeding and low-cost screening camps at the grassroots can do more to cut deaths than expensive machines.
To mark the day, the forum and the clinical oncology department of Bangladesh Medical University (BMU) are holding a dialogue on the global and national breast cancer situation at BMU's Dr Milon Hall at 10 am, followed at 11 am by a pink procession from Shahbag to Karwan Bazar with leaflets.
BMU vice-chancellor Professor Dr F M Siddiqui is the chief guest. Speakers include Professor Dr Syed Akram Hossain, chairman of BMU's clinical oncology department, and Dr Halida Hanum Akhter, a public health specialist and Johns Hopkins University faculty member. The forum will also announce a three-week programme.
The forum has marked 10 October as Breast Cancer Awareness Day every year since 2013, with talks at schools and workplaces, neighbourhood meetings, leaflets and pink-painted buses through October.
The specialists' main message is that awareness and early detection are the way to reduce deaths from breast cancer. The report is by Bangla Tribune.
Photo: Jason Meredith / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0); an illustrative picture of the pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness
Source: Bangla Tribune
Comments
(0)