Breast cancer awareness campaign kick-starts

Mr Paul Opoku Agyemang, Executive Director, African Cancer Organisation (ACO) has launched the 2015 Breasts Cancer awareness campaign programme tagged: “The Pink Month”.

The ACO, as part of its activities, is embarking on a month-long breast cancer control campaign activity to educate the Ghanaian populace about the nature, causes, risk factors, diagnosis, management and preventive, as well as screening and early detection measures against breast cancer.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview Mr Opoku Agyemang explained that breast cancer ranks first among cancers affecting women worldwide.

He said an estimated 1.67 million new breast cancer cases were diagnosed in 2012. This represented 25 per cent of all cancers put together.

“Breast cancer is the most frequent cause of cancer deaths in women in developing countries, with some 324,000 deaths annually, accounting for 14.3 per cent of total deaths from cancer.

“Breast cancer incidence is increasing in the developing countries in the past few decades”.

Mr Opoku-Agyemang said developing countries therefore face a double burden of breast cancer because the resource for breast cancer prevention is so limited or non-existent.

He said most women with breast cancer often presents their cases in an advanced stage of the disease, where cure is often impossible but pain control is the only treatment option.

This makes treatment ineffective and very expensive. The increasing and shifting breast cancer incidence towards developing world is widely considered as a result of the patterns of childbearing, dietary habits, exposure to some ‘artificial’ hormones and possibly other factors similar to those of women in the industrialized countries.

He said the result of the rising high incidence coupled with poverty, illiteracy and inadequate resources for prevention and early detection, has made breast cancer an important cause of premature deaths and suffering in Ghana.

He noted that, the result of the rising breast cancer has become an important cause of premature deaths and suffering in these parts of the world.

Mr Opoku-Agyemang said it is projected that breast cancer will continue to increase with further Westernization.

Generally, it is estimated that by making changes to the food we eat, the level of exercise we undertake and maintaining a normal body weight, about a third of cancers can be prevented. Another third of cancers can be cured if detected early.