To Combat Breast Cancer, End the Stigma

The Partnership would like to share the following editorial, which ran in the July 14th issue of The National, an English newspaper launched by the Abu Dhabi Media Company.

‘Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” These are the words of Marie Curie, the Nobel-prize winning scientist who was the first to treat cancer with radiation. Her words are more relevant than ever today in the Emirates, where breast cancer has taken such a deadly toll on women, and the stigma attached to the disease continues to prevent women from getting diagnosed early enough to survive it. The mortality rate for women with breast cancer in the UAE is unacceptably high. As The National reports today, four out of five women diagnosed with breast cancer in Dubai have an advanced form of the disease by the time they finally seek treatment. And largely as a result of such late detection, 44 per cent of breast cancer cases are fatal...
For a country in which women have made remarkable strides in other facets of life, these are distressing statistics. Women make up over 60 per cent of students in state universities and consistently outperform their male peers in school. Female literacy in the Arab world is near 80 per cent; in the UAE it is 92 per cent. Women hold prominent positions in the Government and are also leading initiatives in the fields of arts, business and fashion. Why then has this society not realised its collective obligation to take the steps necessary to reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer?

The stigma associated with the cancer is doubly concerning considering that the UAE has some of the most state-of-the-art facilities to treat cancer. But despite the presence of world-class medical personnel and equipment, many women remain reluctant to have routine examinations and only do so when it is too late. Rashid Hospital in Dubai has even introduced two new methods of early detection that are found nowhere else in the Gulf. With all these options, there should be no reason for so many cases of breast cancer to be diagnosed at such a late and lethal stage. Yes, effective health care depends on individual responsibility. But women need to be better informed of what is at stake.

Over one million cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation, and more than a third of women with breast cancer will eventually die from the disease. Even though medical breakthroughs may continue to decrease the number of deaths associated with the disease, early detection is still the single greatest factor in helping women beat the disease.

In these circumstances, a public dialogue about the importance of breast cancer screening is even more important than any set of technological advances. Dubai Hospital is to be commended for launching an awareness campaign that will generate a public conversation aimed at changing attitudes towards the detection and treatment of breast cancer. We have the material means; all we need is to change the way people think.

Now is the time we must understand this disease more and fear it less.

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090714/OPINION/707139910/1033