Breast Cancer Screening by Physical Examination: A Randomized Trial in the Phillipines.
Abstract
Screening of the population in intervention areas continued. By the end of July 1997, 11.9, 97.6 were interviewed and examined. Three thousand were detected positive for a lump and referred for diagnosis to the tumor clinics corresponding to a positivity rate of 2.8%. Compliance with referral was only 21%. Motives of non-compliance were assessed on a sample of 1,000 positive women who did not turn up at the tumour clinics for further clinical investigation. The survey indicated that costs and cultural barriers are the main reasons of non-compliance with diagnosis and treatment. Non-compilers are now being visited at their place by medical teams equipped to perform needle biopsies set up for this purpose. However this action has improved compliance by only 9%. Since all remedies put in place to improve attendance of clinics for final diagnosis and treatment failed to improve clinical attendance, if is now clear that the program as a whole will not be able to reduce mortality from breast cancer in this population. We conclude that the intervention should be discontinued once the first round of screening is completed. Both intervention and control cohorts will be followed up to study the onset of breast cancer and resulting mortality in relation to screening. In addition the incidence of breast and other cancers will be studied in relation to the data collected at interview during the initial examination.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA344964
Entities
People
- D. M. Parkin
Organizations
- International Agency for Research on Cancer