October, every year, is considered as the Breast Cancer Awareness Month and celebrities across the globe are doing their bit to help spread the awareness about this deadly disease.
According to a Lancet Study published earlier this year, the survival rate for breast cancer is as low as 66.1% in India while it is 89.5% in Australia and around 90.2% in the USA. And what are the reasons we could attribute to this?
- Lack of awareness of breast cancer and the need to get diagnosed.
- Lack of proper diagnostic centres
According to the Union Health Ministry, breast cancer ranks as the number one cancer among Indian females with a rate as high as 25.8 per 100,000 women and mortality of 12.7 per 100,000 women.
Breast Cancer Awareness:
World Tennis superstar Serena Williams kickstarted the breast cancer awareness this month with this video on her Instagram page promoting the need for women to go in for early detection of breast cancer.
“Yes, this put me out of my comfort zone, but I wanted to do it because it’s an issue that affects all women of all colors, all around the world,” Williams wrote on Instagram. “Early detection is key – it saves so many lives. I just hope this helps to remind women of that.”
Earlier, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie took a bold decision to “proactively” undergo a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing cancer. She took this step as, according to her, she carries a faulty gene that means she is much more likely to suffer from breast or ovarian cancer. The actress is quoted as saying “Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimise the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.”
All through this month- stay tuned to interesting and useful articles that help women understand more about breast cancer, the diagnosis and the treatment procedure. Click here to read them now!