THE Head of the Oncology Department of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Dr Baffour Awuah, has called for the collaboration of medical officers in data collection on breast cancer to enhance effective and efficient analyses of the disease.
He explained that data collection on breast cancer cases in the country was totally fragmented, making it impossible for medical officers to analyse the number of cases and their trend of infection for them to take informed decisions.
Addressing medical officers who attended a global workshop on breast cancer management in Kumasi yesterday, Dr Baffour Awuah noted, “We need to strengthen data gathering of breast cancer cases in the country, just as is done in developed countries, because we have the logistics to do so.”
He said it was equally important for medical officers to make early referrals of breast cancer cases they found difficult to treat to enhance the efficient management and reduction of mortality rate.
The global workshop on breast cancer, which was organised by the Oncology Department of KATH, in collaboration with the Breast Cancer Alliance and Breast Health Global Initiative of the United States, sought to strengthen breast cancer management in Ghana to reduce mortality in women.
About 200 participants, including physician breast cancer specialists from teaching hospitals in the country, as well as district physicians, oncology nurses and specialists from the USA, Italy, France and Romania, attended the workshop.
Among the topics which were discussed were international and Ghanaian statistics regarding breast disease, endocrine biology of the breast, non-malignant breast conditions, malignant pathology, risk factors of breast cancer, diagnostic work-up of breast cancer and tissue sampling.
Others were breast cancer treatment, locally advanced and inflammatory breast cancer, multidisciplinary care, nursing and palliative care of breast cancer.
In his address, Dr Baffour Awuah pointed out that about 99 per cent of breast cancer cases involved women, most of whom were young women in their productive years.
He expressed concern over the trend of breast cancer among young women, saying it was time medical officers collaborated in the management of the disease to reduce the rate of mortality.
In his address, the Chief Executive of KATH, Professor Ohene Adjie, also expressed concern over the rising trend of breast cancer cases in the country and said as many as 700 cases of the disease had been reported at the hospital over the last few years.
He urged the participants to exchange ideas on the disease to enhance effective collaboration in the management of breast cancer cases in the country.
Professor Adjie explained that effective collaboration on breast cancer would make it possible for them to make a breakthrough on how to manage the disease in a more efficient and effective way to reduce the mortality rate.
For his part, the President of the Breast Health Global Initiative, Professor Benjamin O. Anderson, called on the participants to devise means of detecting breast cancer cases early as a way of saving the lives of patients.
He said the mortality rate among breast cancer patients in the US used to be high but the trend had changed because medical officers had now devised means of detecting the disease at its early stages.
“Breast cancer is a global epidemic, but while the mortality rate is rising in developing countries, it is low in developed countries because we undertake early diagnoses and treatment in developed countries, thereby reducing the mortality rate,” he explained.
He said since early detection reduced the risk in managing the disease, it was significant for the participants to collaborate in devising means that would make it possible for them to detect the disease at its early stages to enhance its efficient management.
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