Breast cancer easily curable: Biocon Chief

Bangalore, Dec 4 : Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shaw today asked people not to worry about breast cancer even if its prevelance was growing as it was easily curable and is no more a killer disease.

Launching Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center's month-long programme to create awareness among the public about breast cancer, she said, ''People should understand that cancer is not a killer if it is treated early.

''This initiative was launched to create awareness about the need for early detention through medical check up.'' A decade ago, breast cancer was termed as killer disease. But advancement in health sector had now helped make its treatment easy.

Replying to a question, she said the campaign against breast cancer would also be held in Primary Health Centres (PHC).

''In fact, the government has shown interest in running the PHCs on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and we are looking forward to join hands,'' she said.

Narayana Hrudayalaya Chief, Dr Devi Shetty, in his address, stressing on the need for early detection said breast cancer was so tiny that it took ten years to grow giving enough time to detect and remove it.

The only thing needed was creating awareness about the need for taking up a test.

Dr Shetty said the Narayana Hrudayalaya Multispecialty Hospitals would spread its network to reach a capacity of 30,000 beds in the next five years. Next month, a unit of Narayana Hrudayalaya would be opened at Kolar in Karnataka followed by Ahmedabad and Jaipur by March 2010. It was also proposed to establish hospitals in Siliguri in West Bengal, Mysore and Malaysia shortly.

Prof Anthony Pais, who heads the Breast Unit of Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Institute and Narayana Hrudayalaya Multispecialty Hospital, said one in 22 women died of breast cancer and every year, one lakh new cases were added. This number may double by the year 2015.

One case is detected every seven minutes and every 13 minutes, one woman dies of Breast Cancer.

''India, with 1.2 billion population, has one of the highest number of cancer patients in the world,'' he said.

--UNI