BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) -- China is moving to promote a package of breast cancer prevention and treatment standards across the country, hoping to further prolong patients' survival time and narrow the diagnosis and treatment gap between urban and rural areas.
A series of guidelines covering breast cancer screening, early diagnosis and treatment and rational drug use to follow-up treatment and management of concomitant diseases were released Saturday at an ongoing cancer and health conference, which was jointly held by the National Cancer Center (NCC), Cancer Foundation of China and Beijing Breast Disease Society.
Data released by the NCC in March 2018 showed that the mortality rate of breast cancer in China accounted for 16.5 percent of all female cancers. As breast cancer continues to lay claim to top incidence rates both at home and abroad, its cure rate has been improving steadily in China, with the five-year survival rate reaching 83.2 percent between 2010 and 2014, up by 7.3 percent in 10 years.
As survival time has been significantly prolonged, more patients have entered a chronic disease period, according to the guidelines for breast cancer follow-up and overall management of concomitant diseases, the first of its kind in China, by the NCC.
Common concomitant diseases of breast cancer include cardiovascular diseases, abnormal bone metabolism and depression. "Among elder patients, cardiovascular diseases have caused even more deaths than cancer itself," said Ma Fei, executive chairman of the conference and expert from the NCC.
Under the dual effects of ovarian dysfunction and drugs, postmenopausal patients suffer a distinct drop in estrogen levels, which often results in an abnormal lipid amount in the blood and increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, Ma explained.
In addition, a large number of patients will keep receiving endocrine therapy for five to 10 years after cancer treatment, which is often accompanied by abnormal bone metabolism, osteoporosis and even fractures.
The guidelines clearly require doctors, through interdisciplinary collaborations, to take into consideration a patient's blood lipid level and bone density before giving endocrine therapy. It also suggests that doctors intervene to help patients quit smoking and drinking alcohol as well as avoid tumbles and serious body impacts according to the evaluation of their overall health conditions.
Xu Binghe, a professor at the NCC who has been focusing on breast cancer treatment for more than three decades, noted that the guidelines, by standardizing the follow-up visits and examinations, would bring the prevention of possible concomitant diseases earlier than before and extend the health care to the survivors' entire lifetime.
"It will certainly assist the patients in returning to their family and society in a better state," Xu said.
Ma Fei regarded the guidelines as an important step to change the disease-centered diagnosis and treatment model into a patient-centered one. "The patients should not only live longer but also live well," he said.
