Breast cancer, a life-threatening disease, has the highest prevalence compared to any other type of cancer in Bangladeshi women, yet little to no women above the age of 35 know about the following cancer. That is why, this incident increases significantly each year due to poor socio-economic status, illiteracy, unawareness of the people and lastly, lack of confidence of the patients which leads most women to go to doctors late which results in the disease entering a second or third stage and treatment becomes very complicated and costly.
Over a dozen of breast cancer patients were interviewed in Chittagong Medical College Hospital and not a single patient knew about a cancer related to breast before diagnosis. Among those patients, only one crossed the boundary of the high school or passed SSC. Many of them barely studied till class 6 and some of them never went to school. They also come from a poor socio-economic status and few cannot even afford the treatment. As most of them come from a conservative society, they do not talk about it much and are ashamed of it.
44 years old Jitu Begum, a victim of breast cancer, was suggested to seek homeopathy treatment by the people of her village when she started to feel a lump on her breast. As a result, the tumor was left untreated and her condition worsened. The doctors informed her, leaving the tumor untreated for a long period of time caused the cancer.
50 years old Mojlish Begum, also a victim of the same tragic fate, was diagnosed with cancer 5 years ago but stopped the treatment as she couldn’t afford it anymore. It led her condition becoming from bad to worse.
Studies show that women from poor socio-economic status and with no or low education are often victims of late presentation and tend to have a higher stage at diagnosis. Poverty, literacy and assorted risk factors have influenced the outcome of breast cancer cases among Bangladeshi women.
As the primary method of breast cancer diagnosis is biopsy, patients need to contact a doctor as soon as they notice abnormal symptoms. By doing this, patients have a significantly better chance of surviving cancer and potentially avoiding cancer is what experts say.
None among all the interviewed patients knew about the existence of breast cancer despite breast cancer being the most common cancer in women in Bangladesh. Lack of awareness and society’s conservativeness are the reason why these women are in such ill-fated and painful situations. We should consider it a forewarning now that if proper steps are not taken to spread awareness among women of Chittagong about breast cancer, the condition of breast cancer patients will only get worse in the near future.