Technology can help educate Pakistani women regarding breast cancer

KARACHI: “Pakistan has the highest rate of breast cancer in Asia. The World Health Organization has declared breast cancer the most common cancer, which claims the lives of thousands of women globally every year. Technology integration can be the solution for creating awareness about women’s health in Pakistan.

Pink Pakistan Trust, a non-profit and a non-government organization, provides breast cancer patients free of cost online consultation with leading national and international doctors and therapists.”

Pink Pakistan Trust President Dr Zubaida Qazi stated this while speaking at the COMSTECH Webinar on “Fighting Breast Cancer in a Developing Country: Insight from Pink Pakistan Trust’s Technology-driven Initiatives” jointly organized by the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi (UoK) and COMSTECH.

The people from various countries, including Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, Iraq, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, attended the online lecture.

Dr Qazi said that Pink Pakistan was a non-profit and non-government organization dedicated to improving the lives of the women belonging to marginalized communities in Pakistan. She expressed serious concerns over the high prevalence of breast cancer in the country and the lack of awareness pertaining to the disease among Pakistani women.

Pink Pakistan trust has launched a mobile application that aims to eradicate breast cancer throughout Pakistan by education, early detection, and treatment, she said.

Talking about the significance of the cancer stage, Dr Qazi said that the cancer stage described the extent of the disease, such as how far cancer had spread.

This information informs whether cancer has been diagnosed early or late and what treatment plans should be considered, she added.

The treatment of the disease owns various options selected to treat the cancer patient, such as surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and immunotherapy, she said.

She informed the participants that an open-source cancer registry of Pakistan was being established in collaboration with international agencies for research and development in the field of medical science.

Sindh Cancer Registry owns a primary objective to determine cancer patterns among various populations or sub-populations and monitor cancer trends over time.

Several Breast Cancer Awareness Centers have been set up in universities across Pakistan to conduct face-to-face and online seminars and workshops on the disease, she said.

Dr Qazi said, “In our country, the overall health facilities and infrastructure is in a dilapidated state, and women’s health is the most ignored sector in terms of awareness, accessibility and acceptance.”

We believe that technology integration can create awareness about women's health, especially breast cancer, in Pakistan, she observed.