Chandigarh
21 October 2018
DIVYA AZAD
A ‘Breast Cancer Awareness and Detection Camp’ was organized by Indian Medical Association (IMA) at IMA Complex in Sector 35 here today. Senior medical experts from IMA and Fortis Hospital examined over 100 women and educated them about self-breast examination. Free mammography was performed on women by Asha Jyoti Charitable Trust. In addition, free ECG and blood sugar services were provided to senior citizens.
A talk and an interactive session were organized at the event, which was held in collaboration with Fortis Hospital, Mohali. Speaking on the occasion, Prof. N.M. Gupta, former Professor and Head of Surgery, PGI Chandigarh and an internationally renowned expert in field of breast cancer, said that today breast cancer is the commonest cancer of women all over the world. In India also 26 per one lakh women are diagnosed to have breast cancer every year and it causes around 13 deaths per one lakh women per year- which comes to one woman is detected every 4 minutes and one woman dies of breast cancer every 8 minutes in India. In addition, there is a shift in age group with more and more younger women between 30 to 50 years of age being diagnosed with the disease.
Elaborating on the reasons of increasing incidence, Dr. Atul Joshi, Additional Director-Breast, Endocrine & General Surgery, Fortis Hospital Mohali said that major reasons are life style changes such as late pregnancies, poor dietary habits, sedentary lifestyles, increasing smoking and drinking, lack of breast feeding, lack of awareness of early signs and screening methods and poor access to specialized medical facilities.
Management of breast cancer is through surgery or chemotherapy or radiotherapy or a combination of above depending on the disease stage and individual patient characteristics, said Dr. Jatin Sarin, senior medical oncologist of the city. With advancements in science, breast cancer is curable in more than 90 percent of women if it is detected early. In India, however, 5-year survival is around 65 percent only because large numbers of patients come in late stages when the disease has already spread in other parts of body.
Summing up the discussions, Dr. Sushil Gupta, senior consultant surgeon, said that since early detection is the key – all women should learn and perform self-breast examination every month. All women above 20 years of age should get their Mammography done at regular intervals. Since breast cancer is known to have genetic predisposition, all women with family history of breast cancer in first degree relatives should start this screening from 30 years of age.
Dr. Neeraj Kumar, President, Indian Medical Association, Chandigarh thanked the experts for providing such useful information which if followed can greatly help in improving the attitude of society regarding such a dreaded disease. He also thanked general public for such enthusiastic participation. Indian Medical Association will continue to conduct such welfare programs on important issues for promoting the cause of health of citizens of this region.
