More Related Content
Similar to Nova Weng - %22Early Breast Cancer Awareness & Prevention in China%22 (2016)
Similar to Nova Weng - %22Early Breast Cancer Awareness & Prevention in China%22 (2016) (20)
Nova Weng - %22Early Breast Cancer Awareness & Prevention in China%22 (2016)
- 2.
EARLY BREAST CANCER AWARENESS & PREVENTION IN CHINA
Weng 2
Abstract
Over the past twenty years, a growing number of breast cancer cases have emerged in both urban
and rural areas of central China. Currently, the country’s efforts to produce accessible means of
prevention screenings and physician appointments have not been enough to help young Chinese
women with the resources to effectively detect early signs breast cancer, resulting in limited
treatment options, higher mortality rates, and increased economic burdens in the future.
According to the latest Chinese Cancer Registry Annual Report, the rate of breast cancer cases
have increased two folds in comparison to the rest of the world, and has become the most
common cancer among the 1.3 billion women in China (Wang and Yu, 2015). Today, due to
gaping socioeconomic disparities, many families have battled the issue of inequitable distribution
of health care programs, lack of education in rural areas, and nationally funded mammogram
screenings in China.
- 3.
EARLY BREAST CANCER AWARENESS & PREVENTION IN CHINA
Weng 3
According to The World Health Organization in 2012, 187,000 new breast cancer
incidences have been diagnosed in China, which makes up more than 12% of the world’s new
breast cancer cases. Most of the occurrences have centered around urban regions of the country
approximately 47.79 cases per 100,000 women, which is twice as high as that in rural places
27.72 cases per 100,000 (Wang and Yu, 2015). However, the mortality rate caused by breast
cancer in impoverished locations have doubled in comparison to cities due to their lack of
mammogram screenings and education in early breast cancer awareness.
Between 19932008, researchers have scrutinized the rate of the yearly breast cancer
diagnoses in multiple crosssectional studies in the Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei, and Tianjin
provinces, and discovered that the flat rate have spiked up to 3.78.9% (Wang and Yu, 2015).
Furthermore, 2010 China Chronic Disease and Risk Factor Surveillance System used the Kish
grid method of sampling by conducting a national selection of four random municipalities and
found a staggering variability of breast cancer prone women in junction with socioeconomic
status, education levels, marital status, medical insurance, and differing age groups. Women aged
60 and older had the lowest breast cancer screening participation even though the demographic is
shown to have one of the highest cases of breast cancer. Married women and those aged 3040
had the highest breast cancer screening participation, but those living in developed cities showed
a higher concentration of breast cancer incidences (Wang, 2013).
Analysts have conjectured that this rising trend may have resulted from the byproducts of
China’s growing urbanization and industrialization. Younger women aged 2555 in developed
areas are more susceptible to breast cancer. Compared to Western nations like the US, the mean
age of breast cancer afflicted women is much younger than that of American women and their 5
- 4.
EARLY BREAST CANCER AWARENESS & PREVENTION IN CHINA
Weng 4
year survival rate was less than 73%. One of the reasonings for this inclination is due to the
unequal ratio of cancer registry systems to the high population of women in China. In 2013, there
were only 249 health registries in China that specialize in cancer over a wide area of 31
provinces with more than 200 million people (15.42% of China’s population). However, in the
US, 96% of cancer patients are overseen by nationally funded programs such as the “National
Program of Cancer Registries” by Centers of Disease Control (NPCR) and the “Surveillance,
Epidemiology, and End Results” (SEER) health care systems. Additionally, existing cancer
health registries in China are not properly funded and developed as Western countries, or
growing fast enough to accommodate the rise in cancer cases.
Recently, researchers have found the unequal distributions of breast cancer cases in rural
and urban areas could originate from certain risk factors. For instance, a study by Hardefeldt
found that those who have contracted certain diseases such as Diabetes mellitus are shown to be
connected to a 1020% increase risk of breast cancer. This diabetes is overshadowed in China
and is not considered a major issue in the public health service even though there is a strong
correlation suggesting that the disease could lead to breast cancer. However, the lack of attention
and economic resources in China prevents women from gaining the assistance they need to
detect symptoms of the disease, lower risk factors, or get large scale prevention screenings.
Physiologically, Asian women have higher dense breast tissue than Western women, which
requires more equipment and technological advancements to detect cancer signs. Due to the
increased rate of Asian women showing a higher sensitivity of bypassing breast cancer
detections, culturally, many Chinese are skeptical of distributing funding to large scale screening.
- 5.
EARLY BREAST CANCER AWARENESS & PREVENTION IN CHINA
Weng 5
Currently, there is no governmentally protected law that requires breast cancer MRIs,
mammograms, or large scale followup appointments for women in China. Screenings have been
proven in the US and Sweden to reduce breast cancer related deaths by 20%. Also, China’s
Guangzhou and Shanghai screening programs have detected 84.1% of all breast cancer cases.
However, it is critical to note that China had once initiated a national breast cancer screening in
2005 but has since been stopped after 2 years due to the deficiencies in financial funding and fear
of misdiagnosis (Wang and Yu, 2015). 100,000 women were meant to go through mammograms
and ultrasounds, but it takes 120,000 RMB in each screening process to detect one breast cancer
case and more than 211,000 RMB for each early stage cases to cover China’s population of 652
million females. This is especially more expensive in highly inflated cities like Shanghai, and
more difficult for poorer areas to even access the equipment. On average, breast cancer screening
participation among Chinese women were low and varied with different age groups in
comparison to the West.
Analysts have predicted that there will be more than 2.5 million breast cancer cases by
2021 (Scowcroft, 2011). To prevent this, China must prioritize early detection and awareness as
the number one aspect in treating breast cancer and lowering mortality rates. It is found that
higher educated women and married women showed a 36.6% increase in participating in early
breast cancer screenings. But older women and those without proper medical insurance are seen
to have a much lower rate in participating in independent breast cancer screenings. Though
difficult, China must make is possible to access early breast cancer detecting resources and
improve breast cancer prevention awareness for all women, despite the disparities of
socioeconomic status, regional status, and age.
