October month is Breast cancer awareness month, and early detection is the key to save lives, said Dr. Pratibha Lakshmi founder of We for Women society for women empowerment during the breast cancer awareness 2k walk on necklace road on Sunday. Breast cancer being the second most common cancer in women, One in every 8 women get breast cancer in their life, but, 96% lives can be saved with early detection.1,78,361 new breast cancer cases were reported in 2020 which amount to 13.5% of total cancers.90,408 deaths from breast cancer were detected in 2020 which amounts to 10.6% of total cancer deaths she added.

We, on behalf of we for women are ready to create awareness and training for self breast examination in colleges for early detection of breast cancer. Majority of cases diagnosed with cancer breast in females, showed local and nodal (57.0%) spread, followed by 29.0% and 10.3% of cases with localized disease(confined to breast) and distant metastasis (cancer going to other organs of body) respectively said Dr. Sravanthi, a specialist in Gynecological Malignancies. Do not mistake the cancer to be the disease of elderly or old, it is seen in women as young as 20yrs of age while Average age of presentation is our country is around 40yrs. Morbidity and mortality is high in our country, compared to the western world, as the stage of cancer at the time of presentation is 3rd or 4th. Earlier the detection better the prognosis, said Dr. MSS Keerthi, Surgical Oncologist..

According to National Cancer Registry Program 2020 Hyderabad district ranked first in breast cancer showing 48 breast cancer cases per 100,000 people. Depending on the clinical extent of cancer breast, most typically multi-modality (i.e., Surgery, Radiation and chemotherapy )was the choice of treatment (locoregional: 79.1%, localized: 74.3% and distant metastasis: 47.4%). 46.3% of the patients with distant metastasis underwent systemic therapy, said Dr. Sandeep Tula, Radiation Oncologist in Yashoda hospital, another special invitee of the walk.

Statistically speaking for every 1000 screening mammograms,80 women (8%) will be called for additional imaging,10(1%) will require tissue diagnosis and those undergoing biospy, only 3(0.3%) will have a malignancy. There is a reduction of 1 death for every 414 women undergoing screening for 7 years. What if that 1 is you or someone you know? I guess it’s hard to imagine. Life style modification can prevent the cancer, while early medical attention can cure the disease. Planning of family with early deliveries and breast feeding the children are the other ways to prevent breast cancer told the other doctors in the breast cancer awareness 2k walk organised by We for Women society for women empowerment. Dr. Madanmohan, Dr. Vijaya lakshmi, Dr. Annapurna, Dr. Sunitha Joshi, Ashwini, Dr. Neeraja, Dr. Vamshi, Srikanth Chintala, Palnati Rajendra, around 50 students from Government degree college Begumpet, and many more counting a total of around 200