Breast Cancer: Men must support wives

 Dr Josephine Nsaful, a General Surgeon of the Breast Surgical Unit, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), has advised men to give their wives the needed support when diagnosed for breast cancer to aid treatment.

She said women diagnosed for breast cancer faced challenges that interfered with their entire life with psychological and physical effects and as such needed emotional and financial support to survive the disease.

Dr Nsaful told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that it was sad some women lose their lives to breast cancer due to lack of support from their partners and for the fear of having their breasts removed.

She said the lack of support from men had become a major challenge and said it was time men understood their important role in the campaign and helped saved lives.

Dr Nsaful said breast cancer was the commonest female cancer in Ghana, which mostly affected women between age 40 and 49, but ladies as young as 20 years could get the disease and, therefore, the need for all to get checked.

The Surgical Unit alone records about 400 new cases every year.

The World Health Organisation estimates show that more than 4,000 new cases were diagnosed in 2018.

“This means that the number of new cases have doubled for the past few years,” she said, and that early detection continued to do the magic as the alternative treatments did not help.

She said pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers could also develop breast cancer and encouraged them to have their breasts examined on monthly basis.

Dr Nsaful urged women to take advantage of the free screening month and visit private and public health facilities and have their breasts examined.

She also encouraged breast cancer survivors to share their success stories to motivate others.

Meanwhile, 37 Military Hospital, Lester Hospital, Korle-Bu Polyclinic, Sonoteck, the Trust Hospital, among others, are running free breast screening exercises throughout the month of October.