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Knowledge of Reproductive System Cancers, Their Treatments and Side Effects

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Abstract

We explored, via an online questionnaire, knowledge of breast and reproductive system cancers in patients and non-patients who access the internet for information on these diseases. We compared that knowledge to the attention the diseases have received in medical research and on the Internet. Data were collected from 690 respondents (37 % male, 63 % female) about their knowledge of prevalence, lethality, treatments and side effects of testicular, prostate, breast, uterine, cervical and ovarian cancers. Most males, but only half of the female participants, were patients themselves. Although participants showed better knowledge of cancers specific to their own sex, both sexes felt familiar with breast cancer and less aware of other cancers. Women were as aware as men of side effects of treatments for male reproductive cancers. Sex differences in awareness appear to reflect different attitudes towards illness, bias toward females as caregivers, and the disproportionate media attention given to breast cancer.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by an operating grant from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada to R. Wassersug. We thank Drs. John Oliffe, Annette Street, Lori Wood, and Virginia Edwards for their critical comments on draft manuscript. We additionally thank the managers of the cancer-related websites who agreed to post our survey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada

    Irena Rot, Imhokhai Ogah & Richard J. Wassersug

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  1. Irena Rot
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  2. Imhokhai Ogah
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  3. Richard J. Wassersug
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Correspondence to Irena Rot.

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Rot, I., Ogah, I. & Wassersug, R.J. Knowledge of Reproductive System Cancers, Their Treatments and Side Effects. J Canc Educ 27, 559–565 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-012-0344-1

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