Killer that needs taking more seriously
In any given week, nearly 40 women in Hong Kong are diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the course of a lifetime, a woman living here will have a one in 23 chance of being diagnosed with the disease, and about a 1 per cent chance of dying from it.
It is by far the most common type of cancer to affect women in the city.
Yet the government has chosen to stick with a weak screening policy - far weaker than its approach to cervical cancer, which is a serious disease but one affecting far fewer women.
Perhaps the latest data on the high prevalence of breast cancer in Hong Kong and the recent establishment of the Breast Cancer Foundation concern group will help persuade health authorities to re-evaluate their policy.
There is one main reason for a more aggressive programme: saving lives through early detection. In many countries that have set up wide-scale screening that includes mammographies for women approaching and past the age of menopause, the mortality rate from breast cancer has been reduced by as much as a third.
Japan and South Korea, developed Asian countries with breast cancer rates lower than Hong Kong's, have both chosen to go this route.
A cash-strapped health system need not be an obstacle. Indeed, tight funding should provide an added incentive for clear thinking on how to achieve the maximum public health benefit from the scarce resources available.
As it stands, just 13 government-funded health centres offer partly subsidised mammographies - and then only for women above 50. Hong Kong should consider dropping the screening age to 40, lowering the patient's costs and making the tests more widely available.
The Department of Health has indicated it wants to better promote preventive and primary health care, partly as a way of improving public health and partly to reduce demand for emergency and other hospital services. Regular and affordable screening for breast cancer would fall within the bounds of such a shift.
If city-wide education and screening have been deemed advisable for cervical cancer, the fourth most common cancer to affect Hong Kong women, there is every reason for these measures to be implemented for breast cancer as well.
Some encouragement can be taken from the positive response to the year-old cervical cancer screening programme.
Helped perhaps by the publicity generated by pop star Anita Mui Yim-fong's death from cervical cancer last year and a massive public-awareness campaign, the take-up rate has been high and the goal of regular testing for nearly all women within a decade appears achievable.
Considering that breast cancer affects so many women in Hong Kong, widely available education and testing for this disease should be at the top of the agenda.
