Is a psychological approach required to combat breast cancer mortality in Pakistan?

Excerpt

Pakistan continues to have the highest rate of breast cancer mortality in Asia, with about 40,000 deaths every year (Memon et al. 2013). Early diagnosis is the cornerstone in reducing mortality due to breast malignancies. In Pakistan; however, diagnosis is often delayed due to the female patient’s reluctance to approach a doctor until the problem has reached an advanced stage. Patient’s delay is defined as the time between detection of the first symptom and the first doctor’s consult. Two independent studies have concluded that the average patient’s delay in Pakistan’s breast cancer patients is around 4 to 5 months. (Memon et al. 2013; Malik and Gopalan 2003). To put this value into perspective, we must compare it to those obtained from other countries; the average delay in British women is just 13 days, in Thai women it’s around 2 weeks, in Malaysian women it is around 8 weeks, and Iranian women show a delay of 12 weeks (Malik and Gopalan 2003). …