'Breast health awareness at the community level and among health-care professionals to promote early presentation to the health system, coupled with effective referral' is key to improve the high death rates from breast cancer in sub-Saharan Africa.
We have discussed previously how delays in seeking care lead to poor outcomes. I invite HIFA members to share your experience and observations.
Citation and extracts below.
CITATION: Breast cancer overall survival, annual risks of death, and survival gap apportionment in sub-Saharan Africa (ABC-DO): 7-year follow-up of a prospective cohort study
Mo, Tingting et al.
The Lancet Global Health, Volume 13, Issue 10, e1681 - e1690
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(25)00273-6/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_feature_langlo
EXTRACTS
Between Sept 8, 2014, and Dec 31, 2017, 2313 women were recruited and followed up... During follow-up to at most 7 years, 1323 (61%) of 2153 women died, 672 (31%) were alive at administrative censoring, and 158 (7%) were lost to follow-up, giving crude survival at 3 years, 5 years, and 7 years of 51%, 40%, and 33%, respectively...
To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide breast cancer survival estimates beyond 5 years in Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia. For Nigeria, our 5-year estimate is lower than that in three previous studies,14–16 likely reflecting greater treatment access elsewhere (95–100% of patients) compared with the ABC-DO cohort, and the exclusion of metastatic disease from one study...
The WHO GBCI is timely in light of our findings, as this initiative lays out the actions that need to be taken to improve breast cancer control in low-income and middle-income settings. For the sub-Saharan African setting, GBCI pillar 1 activities must include improvements in breast health awareness at the community level and among health-care professionals to promote early presentation to the health system, coupled with effective referral or management of women who present with symptoms, ideally by ensuring they undergo a clinical breast examination at first contact... Concerning the WHO African region in particular, the WHO Regional Office for Africa is leading the development of two technical products to enable implementation of the GBCI in this region...
In summary, mortality rates among Black women with breast cancer in sub-Saharan Africa remain high up to 7 years after diagnosis. Endorsing WHO's GBCI, we found that a large proportion of these deaths can be averted by strengthening early diagnosis and clinical care, greatly contributing to reducing avoidable deaths of women in these settings.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org