Controlling breast cancer is possible by 2020, says expert

• Oncology expert advocates for the global campaign to end breast cancer by 2020
• ‘Synerge’, Aster DM Healthcare’s CME Division, organized a scientific session titled ‘Crusade against Breast Cancer’

DUBAI- November 03, 2014: It’s not impossible to achieve goals of the global campaign ‘Breast Cancer Deadline 2020’, an initiative by Washington-based National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) to control breast cancer within the next six years, says an expert. Breast cancer would no longer be the end of the road for modern women. 

NBCC has set a deadline to end breast cancer by January 1, 2020. The initiative’s goal is stopping women from getting breast cancer by understanding and preventing the spread of cancer (metastasis), and deaths due to this. NBCC is promoting research to develop a vaccine to prevent breast cancer and ways to stop metastasis, which is the cause for 90 per cent of breast cancer deaths. 
 
Dr. Vivek Radhakrishnan, a globally renowned expert in comprehensive management of various cancers, said that it is time to embark on the most important campaign in the history of breast cancer. Creating a global strategy is essential to eradicate breast cancer, and setting a deadline is the first step towards achieving that goal. This can be achieved by understanding this ambitious effort to galvanize progress into its prevention. 
 
He was speaking at a scientific session titled ‘Crusade against Breast Cancer’, organized in Dubai recently by ‘Synerge’- the CME Division of Aster DM Healthcare, the leading healthcare provider in the Middle East and India. Dr PMM Sayed, Group Medical Director - Aster DM Healthcare, initiated the panel discussion. Other panelists featured in the session included Dr Indira Venkatraman, Specialist OBG at Aster Medical Centre - Al Muteena; Dr Mahendra Rajan, Specialist General and Laparoscopic Surgeon - Aster Hospital Dubai; Dr. Nita Salam, Group Manager-Insurance at Anglo Arabian Healthcare; and Mrs. Premi Mathew, Founder & CEO of Hair for Hope India and Protect Your Mom Campaign. 

Dr. Vivek Radhakrishnan is a European certified and US trained Medical Oncologist and Bone Marrow Transplantation Physician. He is currently the Medical and Haemato Oncology Consultant at the Oncology Centre of Excellence at Aster Medcity-Kochi, South Asia’s most advanced quaternary care destination operated by Dubai-based Aster DM Healthcare. He focused on the advancing hope of the medical world and its capacity to gather, synthesize and analyze information. Breast Cancer is a molecular disease and substantial progress in its treatment over the past couple of decades has contributed to reducing the rate of mortality due to this.
 
Citing a number of accomplishments through global campaigns, Dr. Vivek remarked that the medical world managed to eradicate diseases like polio and smallpox. Modern medicine has the ability to eliminate the vast majority of deaths from lung cancer, most cases of cervical cancer and primary liver cancer worldwide. “When it comes to eradicating breast cancer, it would be possible by leveraging all available resources in awareness, early detection and customized treatment processes, so that to catalyze the development of innovative ideas ultimately ending the breast cancer problem.”
 
He mentioned a case study by Hellman S, who said that perhaps no other disease or its treatment has evoked such strong feelings as breast cancer. “The reasons can be found both in our culture in general and in medicine in particular. The breast, in certain contexts, is the symbol of motherhood, nourishment and security; whereas in others it represents beauty and femininity.” 
 
According to Dr. Vivek, the biggest obstacle in the prevention of breast cancer in many countries is that most facts are based on registries of hospitalized patients. “There’s no population-based registry available on the prevalence of the disease in most countries around the world and that is a handicap in understanding the true magnitude of the problem and device appropriate strategies thereof. The key element in saving the women from the breast cancer is awareness and screening -- early self-breast examination from menarche, clinical breast exam from the age of 20, and mammogram (or MRI scanning in some cases) after 40years. High risk patients, especially those with a strong family history of cancers need to be identified and screened early.” 
 
“The trend of defeating breast cancer has changed with increasing awareness and education on prevention by self-examination, clinical screening; advancing diagnostics, therapeutics and surgical management; tailored treatment through molecular markers and systemic therapy; sophistication in treatment delivery (especially radiation therapy) improving results with minimal side-effects,” he elaborated on. 
 
He emphasized that precision medicine is the present and the future of managing cancers effectively. Chemotherapy was a paradigm changing approach in the 70s, while hormonal therapy became one of the standards of care in breast cancers in the 80s; and now, targeted therapy and precision medicine has revolutionized anti-cancer treatment. The current treatment approach is breast conservation therapy with tailored adjuvant therapy, as it provides survival figures equivalent to those of total mastectomy and axillary dissection while, at the same time, preserving the breast. Total mastectomy and axillary dissection are considered as the 'radical' surgery of the present era. 
 
“With the global acceptance of mammography, a decrease has been recorded in breast cancer mortality. Screening with mammography has been associated with a 15 to 20per cent relative reduction in mortality due to breast cancer among the women aged between 40 and 74 years. However, there are drawbacks for mammography screening, which in some cases causes over diagnoses, over treatment of insignificant cancers, false positive results leading to additional testing and anxiety,” he said. 
 
A recent United States statistics reveal that more than 250,000 women and almost 2,000 men will be diagnosed with invasive and in situ breast cancer this year, and it will take more than 40,000 lives in the US and 500,000 worldwide.  
 
Dr. Vivek is an expert in comprehensive management of solid tumors and blood cancers, and also heads the Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) program at the newly established Oncology Center of Excellence (CoE) at Aster Medcity-Kochi. His special interests include the application of precision medicine in the management of cancers. The CoE assures that patients receive comprehensive care when it comes to cancer diagnosis and care. The center has the world’s best resources, expertise, and advanced medical technology to manage various types of cancers.