Page 6 - BPW-UK - E-news - Edition 125 - Ocrober 2024 - FINALE

Did you know that the Right Bra can save your life?

Here in France, it's called Octobre Rose ... but in the UK and other anglophone
countries we know it as ‘Breast Cancer Awareness Month’.

I had just returned from attending an information day for Octobre Rose, held by
Cancer Support France - Languedoc, an association created to support Anglophones touched
by cancer, here in France, and who have greatly helped me through my own cancer journey,
when President Jo contacted me to ask if I could write a quick summary of our recent webi-
nar held on 9th October on the subject of breast cancer.

She could not have known that this was a highly pertinent subject for me .. because I
had just been in contact with a very good French friend, suffering from triple negative breast
cancer almost since I first met her 10 years ago. She's just had to have another large oper-
ation ... the currently available drugs are no longer working and this was the only way to
save her life, she said. Understandably, she is very depressed about her prognosis.

Sadly, my friend is only one of the around 2.3 million cases of breast cancer diag-
nosed each year [UN statistics]. Not all will be triple negative cancer, of course, but it
seems that all types of breast cancers are growing in number.

Our speaker on 9th October, Dr Anastasia Lewis, President of BPW Bahamas, gave us
a lively but very informative talk about the things we can do to avoid such a terrible out-
come. She highlighted some shocking facts:

 Every year breast cancer claims more than 650,000 lives worldwide
 Survival rates have been recorded to be as high at 90% in high income countries
however, in sub-Saharan Africa the rate is less than 40%
 A recent study found that the incidences of breast cancer in sub-Saharan Africa had in-
creased by 247% during the period 1990 to 2019
 The highest incidence was recorded in Nigeria.
 Breast cancer is the most common cancer amongst U.S. women after skin cancer, and
the leading cause of cancer death in Hispanic women
 In 2024 an estimated 310,720 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in
women, and approximately 42,250 women are expected to die from the disease.
[American Cancer Society facts]
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