Reasons for poor breast cancer management in developing countries
02. 04. 2011 | ecancer.org
Breast cancer is on the rise in developing countries and mortality is high. Now, a consensus review of cancer experts worldwide, published in this month's issue of The Lancet Oncology, has identified the biggest challenges to diagnosing and treating breast cancer in low-income and middle-income countries (LMCs) and proposed resource-appropriate solutions to improve outcomes [1].
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In low-income countries there is little awareness that breast cancer is treatable, inadequate pathology services for diagnosis and staging, and poor treatment availability, especially for radiotherapy and drug treatments that are necessary for decreasing breast cancer mortality.
In middle-resource countries, the main challenges are late-stage presentation of disease, limited data collection, poor provision of community access to early detection, diagnosis and treatment, and low prioritisation of breast cancer control programmes within the health-care system.
Read the whole article at ecancer.org
Reference
- Anderson, B. O., Cazap, E., et al. (2011). Optimisation of breast cancer management in low-resource and middle-resource countries: executive summary of the Breast Health Global Initiative consensus, 2010 The Lancet Oncology DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(11)70031-6
Keywords: breast cancer management, low-income countries, middle-income countries