by Connie C. Triggiano
There is a great fear among Filipino women of cancer diagnosis but are skipping cancer screenings even if the disease is now claiming “premature” deaths among the younger female population.
Breast cancer used to generally afflict older female adults from age 50, but the demographics are now changing. Many younger individuals are now turning up in cancer clinics, many of whom, according to a recent BMJ Oncology journal report, are patients demonstrating the most common type of early-onset disease which is breast cancer.
Along with rising incidences affecting the colon, pancreas and other organs, the scientific research community is playing catch up in an effort to produce the vaccine not only to treat but to prevent cancer cases from wreaking havoc in the lives of young adults.
At the same time, calls for breast cancer screenings and other forms of personal and clinical checks, sensible diet and changes in lifestyles are given tremendous critical importance.
In 2002, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) disclosed that Filipino women in the United States post the highest breast cancer deaths when compared with other Asian women even if Filipino women do not manifest the highest incidence of that cancer. NCI stressed that the predictor of survival points to the relationship between high mortality rate and late diagnosis and the speed of applying intervention measures.
Particularly alarming is the report that Filipino women are dying from breast cancer during their “peak years of productivity,” according to Valerie Ulep, researcher from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) in a forum in August, 2023.
Ulep termed the results of the PIDS probe as “premature deaths” because with early detection, diet and lifestyle changes, those breast cancer deaths could have been prevented.
The same PIDS study ranked the Philippines with the highest breast cancer incidence among 197 countries and higher even in the young (below age 40) with an advanced stage, compared to other Asian countries. The poor survival rate, according to the study, is the result of the cancer’s aggressiveness in Filipino young women, along with their “unique tumor biology.”
That many Filipino females between the ages of 20 and 40 succumbing to breast cancer was also flashed in a 2020 Global Cancer Observatory study in 2020. This alarming trend contained in recent similar studies is attributed to low rate of mammography screening and the absence of sustained awareness campaigns to educate the public of the onslaught of cancer crises.
While scientific investigations have repeatedly credited early detection to be a deterrent for the onset and spread of breast cancer to other organs, Filipino women seem to have been stymied by competing priorities, preventing on-time medical intervention. Barriers often expressed are aversive effects of pain, time constraints owing to family and work responsibilities, lack of funds or insurance coverage, transportation issues and the fear of knowing the results of a cancer checkup.
Many people might choose not to know of a cancer diagnosis or not be told of the cancer finding at all. The fear of discovery of cancer is a major barrier expressed by Filipino women in a research done in 2000 for not seeking medical attention. The study was conducted by the Asian American Network of Cancer Awareness, Research, and Training (AANCART).
The overwhelming nature of a cancer diagnosis triggers a disturbing mix of fear, bitterness, anxiety and numbness that many cancer patients claim the feeling is extremely tormenting, even to their very souls.
For anyone, facing the reality of one’s mortality is a crushing blow that all the more exacerbates one’s emotional and psychological burden. The uneasinesss that wraps around one’s total being amidst a cancer scare can be allayed only by a determined effort to find out the situation without delay.
Only timely intervention through mammogram check may contain the disease from growing and grant the relief from a potentially tragic prognosis.
Connie Triggiano is currently Board Secretary of Circa-Pintig, a Chicago community theater organization. She works as Academic and English tutor assisting foreign students to pass IELTS, TOEFL, Celpic, ESL and other English exams to gain admission to universities in English speaking countries. She also trains greencard holders to pass US citizenship exams and interview. She worked for many years as Vice-President of Chicago-based Leo Burnett Advertising in its Manila office where she managed the advertising accounts of the country’s biggest brands: Procter & Gamble, Pepsi Cola International, BPI, Vicks, Wyeth and Cathay Pacific. She edited a travel newspaper in Singapore and taught college freshmen in a local university. Connie graduated with a BA degree, major in English, from the University of San Francisco in California while working as an information officer for a United Way agency. She took up MS in Advertising at the Asian Institute for the Development of Advertising, UST Graduate School.
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