Abstract
Breast cancer in India is becoming the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in urban women. In developed countries, the mortality from breast cancer has decreased in the past few years attributable to better awareness of disease, screening programs, early detection and more effective treatment available. Although widely used, the screening programs running in the western countries have been a point of criticism in the recent years as they lead to increased healthcare cost and detection of otherwise benign and clinically insignificant breast lesion (both benign and malignant). Also in a developing country like ours where the awareness about breast cancer among the ladies is itself poor, whether screening is feasible and cost-effective is a matter of ongoing debate. We conducted this literature review to ascertain the importance of breast cancer awareness, breast self-examination, and clinical breast examination as effective screening tools in a resource deficient country like India.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bagchi S (2008) Breast cancer rises in India. Can Med Assoc J 179(1):27–27
Ferlay J, Soerjomataram I, Dikshit R, Eser S, Mathers C, Rebelo M, Parkin DM, Forman D, Bray F (2015) Cancer incidence and mortality worldwide: sources, methods and major patterns in GLOBOCAN 2012. Int J Cancer 136:E359–E386. doi:10.1002/ijc.29210
Oeffinger KC, Fontham ETH, Etzioni R et al (2015) Breast cancer screening for women at average risk: 2015 guideline update from the American Cancer Society. JAMA 314(15):1599–1614. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.12783
Myers ER, Moorman P, Gierisch JM, Havrilesky L, Grimm L, Ghate S et al (2015) Benefits and harms of breast cancer screening: a systematic review. JAMA 314(15):1615–1634
P.C. Gøtzsche, K.J. Jørgensen. Screening for breast cancer with mammography. Cochrane Database Syst Rev (6) (2013) doi:10.1002/14651858.CD0018 77.pub5 Art. No.: CD001877)
Anderson BO, Cazap E, El Saghir NS et al (2011) Optimisation of breast cancer management in low-resource and middleresource countries: executive summary of the Breast Health Global Initiative consensus, 2010. Lancet Oncol 12:387–398
A Gadgil, C Sauvaget, N Roy, K Grosse Frie, A Chakraborty, E Lucas, K Bantwal, I Haldar, R Sankaranarayanan. Breast cancer awareness among middle class urban women—a community-based study from Mumbai, India. doi:10.7314/APJCP.2015.16.15.6249
Dey S, Mishra A, Govil J, Dhillon PK (2015) Breat cancer awareness at the community level among women in Delhi. India Asia Pac J Cancer Prev 16(13):5243–5251
Siddharth R, Gupta D, Narang R, Singh P (2016) Knowledge, attitude and practice about breast cancer and breast selfexamination among women seeking outpatient care in a teaching hospital in central India. Indian J Cancer 53:226–229
Rao RS, Nair S, Nair NS, Kamath VG (2005) Acceptability and effectiveness of a breast health awareness programme for rural women in India. Indian J Med Sci 59:398–402
Gupta SK et al (2009) Impact of a health education intervention program regarding breast self examination by women in a semi-urban area of Madhya Pradesh, India. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev 10(6):1113–1117
Rajaraman P et al (2015) Recommendations for screening and early detection of common cancers in India. Lancet Oncol 16(7):e352–e361
Abuidris DO, Elsheikh A, Ali M et al (2013) Breast-cancer screening with trained volunteers in a rural area of Sudan: a pilot study. Lancet Oncol 14:363–370
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Srivastava, A., Suhani Mammographic Screening or Breast Cancer Awareness? Time to Ponder. Indian J Surg 79, 446–449 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12262-017-1672-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12262-017-1672-5