Leading cause for deaths discovered, it is the breast cancer. This has been judged to be the biggest cause for cancer-related deaths not just in India but also in the West. Another reason could be the failure of women to believe that they are or can be at a risk for breast cancer. Another reason could be delayed diagnosis and treatment.
University of Michigan conducted a survey at Ann Arbor showing that one in five women interviewed regarding the same did not believe that they are at a risk for breast cancer. Also they do not know much of breast cancer symptoms.
The survey conducted by the university asked women questions about their personal history. “Women who believe their risk is not high might skip chemoprevention strategies that could significantly reduce their risk. And women who think their risk should be higher could potentially undergo treatments that might not be medically appropriate, which can have long-term ramifications,” said its author Angela Fagerlin in a university press release.
The current study that has been published in Patient Education and Counselling, interviewed around 690 women that were noted to be at an above-average risk of catching breast cancer. These women were made to complete a web-based questionnaire that was based on questions about their age, ethnicity, personal history of breast cancer, and number of first-degree relatives who had had breast cancer. Then they were further told about their five-year risk of developing breast cancer. The selected women were then asked to rethink of their risk of breast cancer within the next five years. And here if their answer was incorrect, they were asked for the reason why they forgot.
The researchers discovered that 22% of women that reported their risk wrongly said they disagreed with the numbers. Some of them believed that only first-degree female relatives i.e. mother, sister, daughter – affected a person’s breast cancer risk. One- third of the women showed a gut instinct that their risk possibility just was either too high or too low.
