Enhanced awareness can help bring down mortality through breast cancer

New Delhi: The grades and stages of breast cancer in Indian patients are higher as compared to other countries. This is the case even among the literate population who opt for alternative treatment options.

Many misconceptions and lack of awareness regarding chemotherapy or mastectomy surgeries keep them away from getting treatment on time and they opt for alternative medicines.

“In India, 1 in 25 people are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, which is less compared to developed countries like US/ UK; where 1 in 8 patients are diagnosed annually.

However, awareness among the developed countries being quite prominent, such high number of cases are diagnosed and treated in early stages and hence the survival rates are better.

However, when one considers the Indian scenario, the survival rates are quite low due to high population ratio and low awareness.

One out of two diagnosed persons dies within next five years, accounting for 50% mortality rates.

Many patients in the urban areas are diagnosed at stage two when the T2 lesions are palpable lumps, but in cases of rural areas, these lesions are diagnosed only after they transform to metastatic tumours,” said Dr. S. Veda Padma Priya, Senior Consultant - Breast Oncology, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, New Delhi.

Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality among patients suffering from cancer worldwide. According to the recent data given by Globacan 2017, breast cancer among Indian women is the highest worldwide.

There is an increase in the trend of new cancer patients, and the age group of new patients coming annually have gradually dropped from <55 years to under 40 years of age. As per the data recorded in ICMR 2017, over 1.5 lakh new breast cancer patients were recorded in India in 2017.

Globally, 7% of the population under the age of 40 years is suffering from breast cancer, whereas in India, the rate is double i.e. 15%.

Of these, 1% of the patients are males, which put together has the highest count of breast cancer patients from India globally.
Apart from being hereditary, many other risk factors like sedentary lifestyle, bingeing on alcohol, smoking, increasing obesity among youngsters, stress and poor dietary intake have been attributed to increase in the incidences of breast cancer among the young Indian women.

According to a study conducted by NCBI 2016, vegetarian women are 40% less vulnerable to breast cancer.

Over the last decade, even though there has been a rise in the incidence of breast cancer, thanks to growing awareness, access and changing paradigms in cancer care, the mortality rate has come down gradually.