With healthy lifestyle, early detection, breast cancer 'survival is as good as 99% over next 10 yrs'

FRANCE 24 English

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00:00 - Well, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month,

00:02 a global effort to promote early detection

00:06 and assist women already undergoing treatment.

00:08 Here in France, there are around 59,000

00:11 new breast cancer cases every year,

00:14 a similar number across the channel in the UK.

00:17 And for more, we can cross to London

00:19 and speak to Dr. Djegini Varghese,

00:21 consultant in Oncoplastic Breast Surgery

00:24 at the Royal Free Hospital.

00:26 Doctor, thank you for speaking to France24.

00:29 Your research focuses on the genetics of breast cancer.

00:33 Can you give us a bit of a summary of what you found?

00:37 - Yeah, so breast cancer is a complex condition.

00:42 There are lots of factors that affect

00:43 our risk of breast cancer.

00:45 And we know about the BRCA1 and the BRCA2 genes,

00:49 which are quite famous, but we also know

00:51 about other high-risk and moderate-risk genes.

00:55 But they explain very little of the familiar risk

00:59 of breast cancer, which is why we now understand

01:02 that breast cancer is actually a polygenic disease,

01:05 which means that a lot of us carry small changes

01:09 within the DNA that increase our risk of breast cancer

01:12 only by a small percentage.

01:14 But if you carry enough of these changes,

01:17 it's possible that we are at a significantly

01:20 higher risk of breast cancer.

01:22 So this is an area where we are learning a lot more,

01:26 and it's becoming very interesting,

01:28 because what we want to do is to predict

01:31 the 30% of our population that is likely

01:34 to get breast cancer, and then implement strategies

01:39 to prevent breast cancer in these populations,

01:41 and also early detection strategies.

01:44 - And could women who carry these genes

01:47 also not have a history of breast cancer in their family,

01:51 and presumably think they're not at risk then?

01:54 - Yeah, that's a very good question,

01:56 because a lot of women who have breast cancer,

01:59 over 50% of women who develop breast cancer

02:02 may not have a family history or any other previous history

02:05 of breast-related problems, which is why we need

02:08 to develop more techniques of identifying

02:10 who is at a higher risk.

02:12 - One of the main points with this October awareness month

02:17 is early detection.

02:20 In my own personal experiences,

02:22 I've seen a number of women who you think

02:24 might be too young to be diagnosed

02:27 being diagnosed with breast cancer,

02:28 and it seems it's getting more and more

02:30 like that every year.

02:31 Is this because of more testing,

02:34 or is something changing in our daily lives?

02:36 - That's a very good question.

02:39 It's actually a combination of both.

02:41 This October month is really important,

02:44 and maintaining a conversation about prevention strategies

02:47 and early detection is crucial,

02:49 because you are right, a lot of young women

02:51 think they're too young to develop breast cancer

02:54 and can completely ignore symptoms.

02:58 So what can we do to prevent breast cancer?

03:01 We should try and maintain a healthy weight,

03:04 increase our physical activity level

03:08 to bring it up to 150 minutes, possibly,

03:11 of moderate strenuous activity in a week.

03:14 We should control our alcohol consumption.

03:17 But then, as you said, there are women

03:18 who've done everything, they lead a healthy lifestyle

03:21 and still go on to develop breast cancer

03:23 for lots of reasons.

03:24 And that is where early detection becomes important.

03:27 And so, and why this is important is,

03:30 if we pick up women who are in stage one,

03:33 or where the cancer is contained within the breast,

03:36 then their survival is as good as 99%

03:38 over the next 10 years.

03:40 But this significantly drops down to 40%

03:44 when it comes down to stage four.

03:46 When we see younger women, what is worrying

03:49 about their diagnosis is, they are more likely

03:51 to develop the aggressive kind of cancers

03:54 that grow really, really quickly.

03:56 And so it's important to spread the message

04:00 and make sure that women are aware

04:02 of the signs of breast cancer.

04:04 They are aware of the reasons for why they would want

04:07 to seek earlier detection strategies like mammograms.

04:10 - Breast Cancer Awareness Month,

04:13 we see these pink ribbons popping up all around the world.

04:16 Are there certain things, if we want to support awareness,

04:21 where should we be putting our money or our attention to?

04:24 - Yeah, so I think this is a calling for all of us.

04:29 It's not just the researchers or the clinicians

04:31 or the patients, we all need to work together.

04:34 And the money will go into group research

04:38 because we need to beat breast cancer.

04:40 It's claimed too many lives.

04:42 We need to understand more about the disease

04:44 and bring this to an end.

04:47 What we also need to do is to have a look around us,

04:51 look at our colleagues and speak to our family

04:54 and see if everyone's taking measures to protect themselves.

04:58 Sometimes it's a good idea to invite someone else

05:00 to come with you to a mammogram visit,

05:02 and then making sure that everyone around you

05:04 is safe as well.

05:06 So let's keep having conversations

05:07 and make sure everyone's seeing the doctor.

05:10 - Excellent points, doctor.

05:11 Thank you very much for your time.

05:12 Dr. Jejini Varghese speaking to us from London.

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