Abstract
The message that health care providers caring for patients with
breast cancer would like to put forth, is that, not only early detection is
crucial but early treatment too is important in ensuring survival. This paper
examines the pattern of presentation at a single institution over a 10-year
period from 1995 to 2005. In Malaysia, education outreach programmes are
ongoing, with contributions not only from the public sector, but also private
enterprise.
Articles on breast cancer in local newspapers and women magazines
and television are quite commonplace. However are our women getting the right
message? Now is an appropriate time to bring the stakeholders together to
formulate a way to reach all women in Malaysia, not excluding the fact that we
are from different races, different education levels and backgrounds requiring
differing ways of delivering health promotion messages.
To answer the question of why women present late, we prospectively
studied 25 women who presented with locally advanced disease. A quantitative,
quasi-qualitative study was embarked upon, as a prelude to a more detailed
study. Reasons for presenting late were recorded. We also looked at the pattern
of presentation of
breast lumps in women to our breast clinic in UMMC and in the
surgical clinic in Hospital Kota Bharu, in the smaller capital of the state of
Kelantan, in 2003. There is hope for the future, the government being a
socially responsible one is currently making efforts towards mammographic
screening in Malaysia. However understanding of the disease, acceptance of
medical treatment and providing resources is imperative to ensure that health
behaviour exhibited by our women is not self-destructive but self-preserving.
Women are an integral part of not only the nation’s workforce but the lifeline
of the family - hopefully in the next decade we will see great improvement in
the survival of Malaysian women with breast cancer.
Key Words: Breast cancer survival, early detection, late
presentation, health messages
No comments:
Post a Comment