Breast and gynecologic cancer prevention in low-resource countries

Bosu, William and Cornelison, Terri L. and Heckman-Stoddard, Brandy M. (2013) Breast and gynecologic cancer prevention in low-resource countries. In: Breast and gynecological cancers : an integrated approach for screening and early diagnosis in developing countries. Springer Publishing Company, New York, pp. 169-188. ISBN 9781461418757

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the prevention of breast, ovarian, endometrial, and cervical cancers through a discussion of risk factors and active interventions for prevention. The priority options available to most low resource countries (LRCs) are to improve health lifestyles and to promote early diagnosis of symptomatic cancer. Avoiding alcohol misuse, smoking, adult weight gain, obesity, physical inactivity, shortened or absent duration of breastfeeding are amenable to individual or group actions. Enacting and enforcing national legislation to reduce lifetime exposure to risk factors and to introduce and expand HPV vaccination programs are needed. The benefits of chemoprevention studies may only be felt in LRCs when low cost options are proven effective in locally relevant resource-limited settings.