13 February, 2013

Breast cancer survival rates low in rural India

The report demonstrates the lack of access to good health care faced by women in poor countries, said the study's principal investigator Rajesh Balkrishnan, an associate professor at the U-M schools of Pharmacy and Public Health.

Early diagnosis and sustained treatment were the biggest hurdles and also the main indicators of patient survival, he said.

Balkrishnan and colleagues looked at roughly 300 women in the southern rural district of Udupi, India. Patients received one of three chemotherapy drug regimens depending on the stage of cancer. Only about 27 per cent of patients were diagnosed in the early stages of cancer, and they survived an average of 11 years.

The majority of patients were diagnosed in later or advanced stages, and they survived from about one to two-and-a-half years after diagnosis and treatment.

Many diagnoses occur at later stages because screening isn't available in those rural areas, Balkrishnan said.

Fear, poverty and ignorance about breast cancer also delay treatment and diagnosis. And, if the diagnosis does come early, access and use of breast cancer chemotherapy treatments—even the generic inexpensive options—aren't readily available. Only the latest-stage patients receive the most current and expensive treatments, he said.

"I think if the tumour is diagnosed early and treated aggressively, a patient can expect an additional decade of survival. But access and adherence to optimal treatment remains very difficult for women in poorer countries," Balkrishnan said.

Breast cancer is a growing problem in India, with estimates as high as 1 in 22 women predicted to develop the disease. While the breast cancer rate is much higher in the United States at 1 in 8 women, the survival rate is also much higher.

For instance, the five-year survival rate for Indian women is about 60 percent; in developed countries, it is 79-85 per cent.

Additionally, studies have shown that Indian women develop breast cancer roughly a decade earlier than women in Western countries.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

13.02.2013

Light smoking ups cardiac death risk in women

The findings of the new study indicate long-term smokers may be at even greater risk, but smoking can reduce and eliminate the risk over time.

"Cigarette smoking is a known risk factor for sudden cardiac death, but until now, we didn't know how the quantity and duration of smoking effected the risk among apparently healthy women, nor did we have long-term follow-up," Roopinder K. Sandhu, the study's lead author from the University of Alberta, Canada, said.

Researchers examined the incidence of sudden cardiac death among more than 101,000 healthy women in the Nurses' Health Study, which has collected biannual health questionnaires from female nurses nationwide since 1976. They included records dating back to 1980 with 30 years of follow-up. Most of the participants were white, and all were between 30 to 55 years old at the study's start. On average, those who smoked reported that they started in their late teens.

During the study, 351 participants died of sudden cardiac death.

Other findings of the study include - light-to-moderate smokers, defined in this study as those who smoked one to 14 cigarettes daily, had nearly two times the risk of sudden cardiac death as their nonsmoking counterparts, women with no history of heart disease, cancer, or stroke who smoked had almost two and a half times the risk of sudden cardiac death compared with healthy women who never smoked, for every five years of continued smoking, the risk climbed by 8 percent, among women with heart disease, the risk of sudden cardiac death dropped to that of a nonsmoker within 15 to 20 years after smoking cessation. In the absence of heart disease, there was an immediate reduction in sudden cardiac death risk, occurring in fewer than five years, and sudden cardiac death results from the abrupt loss of heart function, usually within minutes after the heart stops.

"Sudden cardiac death is often the first sign of heart disease among women, so lifestyle changes that reduce that risk are particularly important," Sandhu said.

"Our study shows that cigarette smoking is an important modifiable risk factor for sudden cardiac death among all women. Quitting smoking before heart disease develops is critical," Sandhu added.

The study has been published in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

13.02.2013

Be thankful for each new challenge, because it will build your strength and character