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Harvard Initiative aims for
early breast cancer detection and treatment in developing countries. More than half of women who died from breast cancer last year lived in
developing countries.
Harvard researchers have noticed an unusual increase in the number of women
with breast cancer in developing countries. So they have spearheaded an
international drive to expand research and gather relevant statistics to begin
to address the problem.
In the U.S., people race to raise money for breast cancer research. Celebrities
endorse fund raisers.
And women with breast cancer talk about it openly, including two former First
Ladies who spoke publicly about their cancers -- Betty Ford in 1972 and Nancy
Reagan more than a decade later. She says:
"The common thought until very recently was that this is a disease only of
wealthy women and wealthy countries."
Felicia Knaul heads a program at Harvard University says the purpose is to find
a way to provide cancer care, including breast cancer, to more people in
developing countries.
Harvard research shows that more than half of the 450,000 people who died from
breast cancer last year lived in developing countries. She says “If a woman
gets breast cancer in the developing world, they (she) has a much higher
probability of dying than a woman who gets breast cancer in the developed
world."
Dr. Elmer Huerta at Washington Hospital Center sees many Hispanic patients. He
says part of the problem with breast cancer is the disease itself.
"Breast cancer is a silent condition. It doesn't hurt when it's
growing."
Dr. Huerta says many Latin and South American communities do not have
mammography machines, and there is a general lack of knowledge about the
disease. He says:
"So if you have a combination of a silent condition, a combination of lack
of access to early detection methods, then what you get, when women find they
have something, usually the tumor has grown, has metastasized. And then they
seek medical care and it is too late."
Dr. Shawna Willey has seen the same thing in Nigeria. She says "Economics is the biggest
barrier. This is a base population that is very poor.” And it is a cash society. “It's all pay as you
go. So if they wanted to have a biopsy done, they had to arrive at the hospital
with cash in their hand. The same would be true if they were to have a
mammogram done.”
Ficilia Knaul would like to reduce costs by training local examiners.
"To do a good breast clinical exam, you do not require an oncologist. You
need someone who's been properly trained, and it's not that difficult to get
this training."
Barriers to treatment differ from country to country. In some countries, the
disease is stigmatized. Doctors might not even discuss it with a woman who has
breast cancer.
Harvard is working with officials and medical experts in many parts of the
world to identify the barriers and help countries eliminate them so women can
be screened and diagnosed in the early stages when breast cancer can still be
treated.
