HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRIPEVINE: OUR NEW ABNORMAL
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month; and for more than a decade, that’s meant something very personal to me in terms of helping my elder sister, Libet C. Virata, and her breast cancer survivor “sisters,” as they turn the affliction they’ve undergone and suffered through, into something meaningful and of help to Filipinas everywhere. It came to the point that I realized this wasn’t a “woman issue,” or something we men shouldn’t have to think about or worry about. The mere fact that we may have a sister, a wife, a female companion or friend, a daughter, and that all of us have a mother – that fact makes Breast Cancer a people issue, one we should all be aware of. And for me, that kind of realization is what this month should be all about.
In February, 2021, a WHO expert stated that breast cancer had overtaken lung cancer as the most common form of the disease globally. Breast cancer alone represents 11.7 percent of cancer cases, with lung cancer now in second with 11.4 percent. With 60-70 percent of cancer cases and deaths occurring in low and middle-income families; what’s worrying is how diagnosis, treatment, and therapy have partially or completely been disrupted by the pandemic – and this will have an impact on the total number of cancer deaths in the years to come.
Here in the Philippines, as far back as 2018, the Philippine Society of Medical Oncology reported that among Asian countries, our country has the no. 1 incidence of breast cancer. It went on to say that, “Three out of 100 Filipino women will get breast cancer before age 75, and one out of 100 will die before reaching 75.” And from what I remember, the medical community is relatively stumped in terms of explaining why this high incidence among Filipinas.
What is encouraging to note is that when women with breast cancer are diagnosed at an early stage, when the cancer is still limited to the breast, the five-year survival rate goes up to as high as 99 percent. And globally, 62 percent of the cases are now women in this early stage. Unfortunately, the 10-year survival rate here in the Philippines is only estimated at 57 percent, much lower compared to more developed countries. And that’s where awareness comes into play – low awareness, low screening rates, they all point to a higher proportion of late-stage cases here in our country. The higher morbidity and mortality rates among Filipina breast cancer patients can also be attributed to inadequate access, and the high cost of treatment here.
From 2015-2017, I helped my sister and her fund raising committee of ICanServe (ICS), a volunteer foundation dedicated to fostering Breast Cancer Awareness and early detection. collaborating with LGU’s, ICS had great initiatives of raising awareness and providing education on self-examinations and screenings. To raise money for these efforts, for three consecutive years we successfully mounted three versions of FashionCanServe, each show bringing together our country’s finest fashion designers, movie celebrities, guest model/survivors, and a fully appreciative and supportive audience, and roster of sponsors.
In 2019, while my sister continued to support ICS; along with some friends, they set up a new foundation, Helping Women & Others (HWAO). She felt that while ICS had its noble cause of talking awareness and early detection, she would also like to target those already afflicted, and the sad plight often facing those challenged by the cost of treatment. Along for the ride, I joined the HWAO Board, and we approached Dr. Gap Legaspi at the UP-PGH, where he explained how one of the bottlenecks in treating breast cancer patients was the chemotherapy prep room/lab where the chemo ‘cocktails’ would be mixed & prepared.
There were instances when some patient would show up in the morning, already be last in line, and due to the waiting list and prep facilities, not even get her treatment - with no assurance that if she came back the next morning, she’d fare better going through the same thing. To hopefully alleviate that situation, with the blessings of UP-PGH, HWAO set about raising the money to improve and increase the chemo prep facilities and capabilities, and that should come to fruition later this month or by early November, pending the importation and release of additional BioHoods.
Besides ICS and HWAO, there are other organizations with Breast Cancer Awareness as their advocacy, or major arena of concern. The idea is that we take this month as a way to, once again, jumpstart the kind of concern and care we should be devoting to those afflicted by breast cancer. Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala, the founder of ICanServe, liked to joke that I’m an ‘honorary sister’; and I became something of a fellow survivor myself when I was afflicted with prostate cancer early this year.
It has been problematic this last year and half because of the pandemic for most breast cancer cases. I know that PGH has been especially thankful that back in 2019, they partnered with Hyundai with a mobile diagnostic clinic, and that became foresight of another kind, when the pandemic struck. So don’t let this month pass without doing something in the name of Breast Cancer Awareness.