The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Breast cancer: awareness stressed

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Monday, Sep 15, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Breast cancer: awareness stressed

Special Correspondent

Keeping track of changes is the best way to keep breast cancer at bay

HYDERABAD: It is a subject that many women approach with trepidation. With increasing incidence of breast cancer cases, they were given to understand all these years that doing self-examination once a month was enough to identify abnormal feel to keep breast cancer at bay.

A new analysis by a reputed international organisation Cochrane Collaboration that evaluates medical research, released an interesting report recently. Periodical breast self-exam cannot help diagnose cancer at the initial and preventable stage. It is more important to be ‘breast aware’, the report said.

Breast self-examination is a regular, repetitive monthly palpation performed by a woman at the same time each month to a rigorous set method.

On the other hand, breast awareness is defined as a woman becoming familiar with her own breasts and the way they change throughout her life. In other words it is being sensitive, observant and alert to notice any change that could help detect breast cancer.

The Cochrane organisation cited evidence from two large population-based trials conducted in Russia and China. In the trials, involving 3.8 lakh women, half were trained to do breast self-exams and for comparison the others were not urged to do so. During 10 years of monitoring , 587 women died of breast cancer. Of them 292 belonged to breast self-exam group and 295 to the other group.

Changes

Breast awareness makes one alert to changes in size, lump or thickening in some part of breast, skin changes like puckering or dimpling, rashes or discharge from nipples, swelling under armpit or continuous pain in one part of breast or armpit, the study said. Dr. Raghuram of KIMS-Ushalakshmi Centre for Breast Diseases in city, who co-authored an article with a breast cancer survivor from UK, said that the Cochrane data vindicated their centre’s policy on encouraging women to be breast aware, he said.

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