President Arif Alvi recently wrote letters to ministers, parliamentarians and media to support breast cancer awareness campaigns. He quoted an alarming figure of 100,000 breast cancer cases in Pakistan each year whereas the Global Cancer Observatory (Globocan) report, supported by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, estimates it to be 26,000. This highlights a very basic problem related to data gap in the country due to the absence of a national cancer registry in Pakistan.
Data about cancer is really the missing link and it has been pointed out on various occasions, but no progress has been made so far, which means service delivery is nothing but guesswork.
Raising awareness on breast cancer can play a vital role in saving lives. However, we have not made much effort in terms of providing access to treatment, especially for women who manage to detect breast cancer in its early stages.
Treatment is not just about the physical aspects of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormone therapy, targeted therapy, but also includes pain management and survivorship support.
There is a lot that still needs to be done in the nation’s fight against breast cancer and we can only expect progress if everyone of us comes together to make a comprehensive strategy to fight this disease.
MARIAM KHAN
LAHORE
