It’s breast cancer awareness month – strike a pose, take a cocktail masterclass and join the pink revolution with these four Hong Kong events

Breast cancer affects more than 2.1 million women a year globally, with 4,000 new cases each year in Hong Kong

Pink Month aims to raise awareness and funds to help more women tackle this beatable disease

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Dress in pink on October 23 to help raise breast cancer awareness. Photo: Hong Kong Cancer Fund

Published: 4:15pm, 1 Oct 2020Updated: 10:27am, 2 Oct 2020

October is “Pink Month”, the time breast cancer goes under the spotlight. And with good reason. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, affecting 2.1 million each year around the world. In Hong Kong the disease is the most common cancer in women, with more than 4,000 new cases diagnosed every year, according to the Hong Kong Breast Cancer Foundation (HKBCF).

As of February, more than 23,000 breast cancer patients were registered with the HKBCF, covering almost 40 per cent of all local patients diagnosed each year.

The foundation hopes to boost its registry numbers. Last week it proposed to the government the implementation of a universal breast-screening programme, targeting high-risk women, aged 40 or above, as well as those living in lower income districts such as Kwun Tong and Sham Shui Po, for regular breast checking.

“By the time the underprivileged go to a doctor, most are already at stage two or a more advanced stage of breast cancer,” HKBCF chairman Eliza Fok Ho Yi-wah says, citing foundation data.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Hong Kong. Photo: TNS

Breast cancer stage is usually expressed as a number on a scale of zero to five, with stage 0 describing non-invasive cancers that remain within their original location and stage 5 describing invasive cancers that have spread outside the breast to other parts of the body.

Here are four ways you can show support throughout the month.