LAHORE: Speakers at a seminar at Govt College University Lahore have cautioned that there is frightening increase in the ratio of breast cancer in young girls in Pakistan due to inappropriate diet and unhealthy lifestyles. “The situation is getting more and more critical every year, and only key to survival from this fatal disease is early detection,” said clinical oncologist Dr Kashifa Ehsan while addressing the seminar orgainsed by the University’s Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) in collaboration with the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC).
She dispelled the impression that only married women or women in middle ages were the victim of breast cancer, saying even young girls must have knowledge about their self-examination methods. “It is rare but there are chances of developing this disease in men and hundreds of such cases have been reported throughout the world,” Dr Ehsan added.
Addressing the seminar, GCU QEC Director Iram Sohail said the month of October was marked in countries across the world as breast cancer awareness month for early detection and treatment and also as palliative care of the disease. She said breast cancer was by far the most common cancer in women worldwide, and this incidence was rising up steadily every year due to increase in life expectancy, urbanisation and adoption of western lifestyles.
She said currently there wasn’t sufficient knowledge of breast cancer in Pakistan; therefore, more awareness campaigns were needed to be launched for this purpose at the national level. She asked the students to work as volunteers in their families to raise awareness among their female family members. She believed breast cancer was not fatal rather it was ignorance which made it fatal. “Early detection can result in survival rate of 90 percent,’ she added.
Later, the clinical oncologist and experts briefed the GCU female students about the signs and symptoms of breast cancer and methods of self-examination. The clinical oncologist said that all women were at risk of developing breast cancer.
