Breast cancer is one of the two most common cancers in Indian women. The single most unmet medical need of breast cancer is to raise the awareness of the disease. Maina Foundation with its credo ‘Join hands to fight breast Cancer’ has been working towards this cause since 2008. With a view to understand ways in which we could collaborate further with Tata Memorial Hospital we were in conversation with Dr Gupta , Deputy Director, (CRC) ACTREC (Advanced Centre 6 Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer) , Kharghar
Here are some revealing facts:
1. Some of the key reasons for the malaise are – genetics, environment and lifestyle related habits that cause overweight, sedentary life, lack of physical activity and reproductive factors.
2. Continuous activity is more effective than having an half an hour or one hour workout.
3. On a per lakh (100,000) count, 9- 10 die in rural India while the count triples in urban India to 32.
4. It is believed that India has the highest number of breast cancer deaths. Since the patient presentation occurs at late stage the case fatality number is higher as compared to mortality.
5. Case fatality rate is as high as 50 % in India. This is because access to healthcare is poor in India. As a result the diagnosis happens at a later stage.
This indeed underscores the mission of Maina Foundation of raising awareness and importance of early detection.