More women are dying of breast, cervical cancers in developing countries – Research

By SOLA OGUNDIPE

Stronger and more decisive policy attention is needed to strengthen established health-system responses to reduce breast and cervical cancer, in developing countries.

This is the situation, even as researchers from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, IHME, and the University of Queens, discovered from data collected on mortality and incidence for breast and cervical cancer, while more women are dying at younger ages of breast or cervical cancer in the developing world, the probability that women will die from either disease in the developed world has decreased.

A Report published in The Lancet said the researchers systematically collected cancer registry data on mortality and incidence, vital registration, and verbal autopsy data for the period, and published the findings in report, entitled “Breast and Cervical Cancer in 187 countries between 1980 and 2010: A Systematic Analysis.”

• Wife of the Lagos State Governor, Dame Abimbola Fashola during a public campaign programme organised by the Pink Pearl Foundation aimed at empowering and enlightening women on the need to undergo annual cancer screening with the goal of reducing the rate of death caused by breast cancer in Nigeria.

“The Challenge Ahead: Progress and Setbacks in Breast and Cervical Cancer, which provides global, regional, and country data for cases, deaths, and risks over the past three decades.

The y said increases in the absolute number of cases and deaths from the cancers may be due to the interaction of factors including rising population numbers in women of at-risk age, aging of the population, and changes in age-specific incidence and death rates.

As a result of the rising numbers of deaths from breast and cervical cancer and the decreasing numbers from maternal mortality, it is expected that more deaths occur worldwide from breast and cervical cancer than from maternal mortality.

Based on current trends, breast and cervical cancer will likely approach maternal causes of death in women of reproductive age in developing countries within the next two decades.

The researchers conclude that better surveillance systems are needed to monitor the trends in breast and cervical cancer incidence and mortality.

In addition, more policy attention is needed to strengthen established health-system responses to reduce breast and cervical cancer, especially in developing countries.

The Report said breast cancer cases more than doubled around the world from 641,000 cases in 1980 to 1.6 million cases in 2010, a pace that far exceeds global population growth.

During that same period, deaths from breast cancer rose from 250,000 to 425,000 in 2010.

This much slower increase than the rise in cases indicates that screening and treatment programs are having an impact.

Cervical cancer cases grew from 378,000 cases in 1980 to 454,000 in 2010. Cervical cancer deaths grew to 200,000 over the same period, nearly the same pace as cases.