BREAST CANCER PREVENTION THROUGH RISK ASSESSMENT
With 53 Australian women being diagnosed with breast cancer every day and over 3,000 dying from the disease each year, there is an urgent need to reduce the number of women developing breast cancer in the first place.
There are many ways that women can reduce their risk of developing breast cancer and it’s important that these options are known and available across the entire population, regardless of geographical or socio-economic situation.
As an NBCF-funded fellow, Professor Kelly-Anne Phillips has developed a web-based tool called iPrevent which is designed to help all Australian women to know and appropriately manage their personal breast cancer risk.
NBCF has now provided additional fellowship funding to further refine breast cancer risk assessment so that prevention strategies can be best targeted.
Professor Phillips will also seek information directly from women and their clinicians about why some women do not utilise breast cancer prevention and screening options. Understanding these barriers is the first step to breaking them down and will enable more women to access the benefits of 21st century breast cancer prevention knowledge.
“Every day, I see women newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Some of them might have avoided their breast cancer had they had the opportunity to use a tool like iPrevent.”
Professor Kelly-Anne Phillips, NBCF-funded researcher
MEET JO
Tina felt she was living the ideal life in 2008, at age 37 – a great job, recently renovated apartment, wonderful family and fantastic friends – when a painful lump in her left breast sent her to the GP for closer examination. Subsequent biopsy results confirmed breast cancer, and then a mastectomy, reconstruction and chemotherapy treatments followed.
Tina says her life has changed drastically since the experience with breast cancer. “Now my goals are living and enjoying my life, health and fitness, family and friends.”
“Although I consider myself lucky to have survived this disease, I don’t want anyone else to have to travel the road that I did. Let’s make everyone lucky and work towards having a world without breast cancer.”
Cancer treatment can be distressing - the iPrevent web tool personalised to my circumstances would motivate me to look at how I can address breast cancer prevention to try to stop cancer in its tracks.
