Marwari Hospitals jointly with FOGSI conducted a three-day screening camp and awareness drive on preventable cervical and breast cancers in Guwahati from March 6-8 to mark the celebration of International Women’s Day.
The hospital conducted the programme in association with the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI).
“This is actually an awareness programme with social service. We have to educate the patients on survival of breast cancer. If we do early treatment, we have more chance of surviving. This screening camp is to give education,” said Dr Dipak Kalita, senior consultant (O&G), Marwari Hospitals.
“Early detection of the disease and with proper treatment, success rate is high. All over India, this awareness drive is going on and as Northeast has more cases and incident of breast and cervical cancer, so FOGSI has recommended our hospital too to have this awareness drive and also detection of the patients,” Dr Kalita added.
“It is estimated that approximately 123,907 cases of invasive cervical cancer will occur every year in India, with about 77,348 deaths from this cancer (GLOBOCAN 2020),” Dr. Kalita said.
He further said “it is unacceptable that cancer that can be prevented and treated well is still a major burden in India”.
Most of the cervical cancer and pre-cancer cases can be detected in the reproductive age group. When cervical cancer is detected and managed at an early stage, it has over 93% cure rate, he said.
FOGSI’s vision is to eliminate this preventable cancer by public education, HPV vaccination, mass screening, and curative treatment.”
“We are now witnessing more and more numbers of patients being diagnosed with breast cancer in the younger age groups, 48% patients are below 50 years. Breast Cancer became the most common cancer in women in India, in cities and in rural areas,” Dr Sudha Agarwal, consultant (O&G), Marwari Hospitals, said.
Dr Agarwal said 87,090 women died due to breast cancer in India in 2018.
“Out of every 100 women with breast cancer in the US, 95 women are likely to survive for at least 5 years whereas the 5 years survival for breast cancer in women in India is not even 60%,” she said.
This happens because “most women come to a doctor in advanced stages as they are not aware of it”, she said.
The Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI), is the federation of 258 affiliated member societies across India.
It has over 37,000 practising gynaecologists as its members, making it one of the largest membership-based organizations of any specialized medical professionals across the world. FOGSI was established in January 1950.