Since 1985, October has been designated Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It is an entire month dedicated to increasing awareness and educating the public of the causes and treatments of breast cancer. While the organization continues the mission to educate year round, they take one month of the year to pour extra effort into the campaign.
If you pay close attention, you can find pink ribbons throughout the community. My daughters’ soccer team not only has a pink ribbon on their regular uniform, they have also invested in a completely pink uniform to signify the club’s support of education and awareness on breast cancer. If you watch football on Sundays, the NFL has joined the campaigned. You will see different teams with some sort of pink accent, whether it be gloves, shoes, or towels.
Cancer is when cells in the body become abnormal and begin to divide without control or order. Breast cancer is when this process occurs in the breast tissue of both women and men. Cells dividing without order can cause excess tissue which forms a mass called a tumor. While most tumors are not cancerous, many are. The invasion of these malignant tumors can cause additional damage to other tissue and organs.
In 2009, there was an approximate 192,370 cases of breast cancer diagnosed. That number includes 1,910 men. In the same year there were 40,610 deaths including 440 men. There are approximately 2.5 million survivors. It is the second most common type of cancer in women (skin cancer is first) and the second leading cause of cancer related deaths to women (lung cancer is first). With such a wide spread disease, it is difficult to find anyone who has not been effected or experienced breast cancer in some way, either with a relative, spouse or friend.
It would be difficult to measure the total impact of the various campaigns supporting breast cancer awareness, it is true that we have seen a significant decrease is the number of incidents (2% decline) and death (2% decline) in the last ten to fifteen years.
What do you think about having a month dedicated to breast cancer awareness? Are there other diseases which could benefit from starting similar campaigns? If so, what disease and why?