It is indeed fortunate that we can observe and in many ways celebrate breast cancer awareness and breast cancer month—the month of October this year, coming out of the pandemic.
While we have lost many lives in the pandemic, we are comfortable saying that we are so much better today than we were two years ago, and lives are being saved.
However, breast cancer has not been at the forefront while the world was crippled by the pandemic, and therefore many of those patients and many women have had their screening and their diagnosis delayed and put off during that time. It is known that in the United Kingdom surgeries for breast cancer have been significantly delayed, as well as diagnosis, and this will have an impact on overall survival.
So women must note that the pandemic is largely getting better and is almost behind us.
Women must become aware of their commitment to go through annual screening and regular checks to ensure that their bodies are safe and healthy.
I wish to remind you that yearly breast screening is very important. Screening offers the best opportunity to identify changes in your breast and to detect small lesions at the point where it has not turned into cancer but may be predetermined to become cancer.
Therefore, treatment at that particular stage can be curative.
Screening for women over 40 should take the form of mammography done every year, with supporting ultrasound and clinical examination where needed.
The fear that mammography is dangerous is not so, the fear that mammography is painful is not so.
With modern technology, digital mammography, and highly trained mammographers in the world today, most women do not find that this is a painful procedure.
In fact, in our practice, most patients have painless mammography.
I wish to support women and encourage them to not be fearful as screening saves lives and it is very important to appreciate that.
Moving forward, I will address many aspects of breast care this month and then we will commit to answering questions for patients that may arise.
But, the message today is that we must celebrate, we can give support to the many women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, raise awareness for the month of October and be able to send that public message home, that screening saves lives.
Dr Rajendra Rampaul is a Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgeon and Surgical Oncologist at Pink Hibiscus Breast Health Specialist in Woodbrook.