Health professionals urged to demystify breast cancer
Reach for Recovery Ghana, a breast cancer support group, in collaboration with the Korle-Bu Breast Clinic, and other organisations, has held a day’s seminar on the theme, ‘Breast Cancer Information Day’ in Accra, for personnel in the medical field.
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Breast cancer awareness month
The programme was organised to mark the Breast Cancer Awareness month which is observed annually in October in support of the campaign to increase awareness of the disease.
Addressing the seminar, the head of the Surgical Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Professor Joe Clegg-Lamptey, advised oncologists to work as a team and adopt a multidisciplinary approach to deal with breast cancer cases.
He said that was necessary to enable health experts in the field to utilise diverse ideas in treating patients to save lives.
Professor Clegg-Lamptey added that although breast cancer was much more common in women, men could also develop the disease, indicating that some factors that accounted for the cause of breast cancer in men were smoking, as well as family history of breast cancer.
Self-examination is key
Professor Clegg-Lamptey pointed out that about 75 per cent of breast cancer patients reported to the hospital late when the disease had reached an advanced stage, and advised women to do self examination of their breasts at least twice a month to look out for any abnormality.
He said the report of a study carried out by the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital indicated that about 39.4 per cent of breast cancer patients did not report to the hospital early for treatment, while 19.7 per cent of these patients visited prayer camps for treatment, which he described as a serious challenge encountered by medical practitioners in treating the disease.
He also said 24.4 per cent of patients were ignorant of the disease and needed to be educated.
He urged medical practitioners to increase awareness of breast cancer to demystify the disease.
Early diagnosis
In another presentation, Dr Nii Adu-Aryee, a surgeon at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, also advised patients to report to the hospital early for treatment, stating that late diagnosis reduced the patient’s chance of survival.
The Director of Reach for Recovery Ghana, Mrs Gladys Boateng, said the organisation had collaborated with other health professionals to create awareness of the disease and also to assist in breast screening programmes.