Breast and Cervical Cancer

Breast cancer is a major killer in developing countries. Unlike in developed countries, the mortality and morbidity rates are very high. In Nigeria, only about 2 out of 10 ladies diagnosed with breast cancer will survive in 10 years. The statistic is similar in most developing countries. This is contrary to 8 out of 10 survival rate in most of the developed countries. The low survival rate is majorly associated with lack of routine national screening programs in those countries hence late presentation. As most breast cancer patients present at an advanced stage of the disease, curative treatment becomes too expensive or impossible. Presently, the available and most advocated way of screening in such low resource areas is Self-Breast Examination (SBE) however, only a few of the ladies even bother to examine themselves and for those that do, understanding the examination process and what to find is not clear. Working with partners, we have been using a simple, portable, X-ray free and cheap breast scanner that uses red light technology to screen for cancerous lumps in the breast. Published evidence are showing the sensitivity of 94 to 96% and specificity of about 87%. One major advantage of the device is that it requires no consumables to function effectively and its battery operated with the capability to screen more than 70 to 100 people in one single full charge.