Only 66.6% Breast Cancer Patients In India Survive

Lack of awareness and screening programs as part of a routine checkup are the main causes for the lag in early detection of the disease.

Breast cancer patients in India have a low survival rate of 66.6% compared to the US and Australia which have survival rates as high as 90%.

“For women diagnosed during 2010-14, five-year survival for breast cancer is now 89.5% in Australia and 90.2% in the USA, but international differences remain very wide, with levels as low as 66.1% in India,” according to the study titled Global surveillance of trends in cancer survival 2000-14 (CONCORD-3).

Screening for Breast Cancer with Clinical Breast Examination
Clinical breast examination is a simple and inexpensive method of detecting breast cancer especially in women who do not have access to mammography.

‘The five-year survival for breast cancer is 66.6% due to the lack of awareness and screening routines.’

CONCORD-3 is a global programme for worldwide surveillance of cancer survival, led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The study analyzed individual records for 37.5 million patients diagnosed with cancer during the 15-year period from the year 2000 to 2014. Data was provided by 322 population-based cancer registries in 71 countries and territories, 47 of which provided data with 100% population coverage.

Reasons For the Low Survival Rates

Recent Advances and the Present Status of Breast cancer Management
The crab that invades the breast is no more a fear factor with all the advancements that medical science and customized protocols can fight breast cancer. the recent developments in the management of breast cancer.

According to the Union health ministry, breast cancer ranks as the number one cancer among Indian females with a rate as high as 25.8 per 100,000 women and mortality of 12.7 per 100,000 women.

According to estimates, at least 17,97,900 women in India may have breast cancer by 2020.

Inherited Breast Cancer Syndromes
Inherited breast cancers are caused due to mutations in genes that increase the risk of breast cancer in women.

The major reason for low survival rates of breast cancer in India is that the awareness about cancer.
Patients come for treatment only at the later stages of the disease.
The normal screening of breast cancer in Indian women is very low.

Cancer specialists attribute several reasons for a low survival rate in India. “In developed countries, only 25% of patients diagnosed die due to breast cancer which means 70-80% are cured because they are diagnosed early. In India 50-60% of the patients diagnosed in any particular year die of breast cancer because of late diagnosis which is just double the cases in comparison to the west,” said Ramesh Sarin, senior consultant-surgical oncology, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Delhi.

“The major reason is lack of awareness of early signs of breast cancer and screening methods, secondly non-availability of diagnostic centers and knowledgeable oncologists in tier two and tier three cities,” Sarin said.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment & Prognosis
One of the rare breast cancers, inflammatory breast cancer is marked by redness, swelling and warmth of the breast skin looking like an orange peel.

“After that unavailability of financial resources makes survival rates worse and this is true for all cancers in India. So patients come late, don’t have centers closer to their hometowns and unaffordable treatments lead to higher no of deaths due to Breast Cancer,” she added.

Survival Trends of Cancer Patients

The study included 18 cancers or groups of cancers including esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, lung, breast (women), cervix, ovary, prostate, and melanoma of the skin in adults, and brain tumors, leukemias, and lymphomas in both adults and children.

According to the study, survival trends are generally increasing, even for some of the more lethal cancers. In some countries, survival has increased by up to 5% for cancers of the liver, pancreas, and lung.

The study said that for most cancers, five-year net survival remains among the highest in the world in the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. For many cancers, Denmark is closing the survival gap with the other Nordic countries.

Source-Medindia