UICC actions and initiatives for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer, close behind lung cancer, and the leading cause of cancer death for women. While it can generally be successfully treated if diagnosed early, many women living in low-resource settings are dying unnecessarily due to a lack of access to life-saving early detection and treatment services.

The month of October serves as a crucial occasion to call for better prevention, early detection, diagnosis, and treatment strategies for all populations. Through its Breast Cancer programme, UICC will release new resources this month to support its members, including an advocacy handbook, a self-guided online course and content on UICC Connect to spark productive discussions.

Handbook on advocacy for breast cancer control

Building on the core resources available as part of UICC's Cancer Advocates programme, a complementary handbook has been developed to support advocacy for the implementation of WHO’s Global Breast Cancer Initiative, which aims to reduce breast cancer mortality by 2.5% per year by 2040. The handbook aligns with the initiative’s three pillars: early detection, timely diagnosis, and comprehensive treatment management and provides practical strategies to engage with policy makers and build effective campaigns.

It highlights successful advocacy efforts, such as El Salvador's integration of breast and cervical cancer screening, and stresses the need for patient navigation programmes to reduce diagnosis delays. The handbook also showcases efforts in countries like Rwanda and Brazil to ensure uninterrupted cancer treatment.

Key challenges include overcoming political resistance, addressing weak healthcare infrastructure, and ensuring the financial sustainability of cancer programmes in low-resource settings. 

Global Breast Cancer Initiative online course

UICC has also developed a course on the Global Breast Cancer Initiative in collaboration with WHO, designed to support the dissemination and implementation of the GBCI across its membership. The course provides an in-depth overview of the initiative’s three core pillars:

1. Health promotion for early detection – with Dr Partha Basu from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, this section highlights strategies for raising awareness and improving early detection.
2. Timely diagnosis – with Dr Ben Anderson from City Cancer Challenge, this section focuses on reducing delays in diagnosis and improving diagnostic capacity, which is crucial for improving patient outcomes.
3. Comprehensive breast cancer management – with Dr Fatima Cardoso from the Champalimaud Foundation and ABC Global Alliance, this section outlines best practices for ensuring patients receive timely, effective treatment without interruptions.

The course will be available exclusively for UICC members on UICC Connect, UICC’s new knowledge sharing and collaborative platform being released to the wider cancer control community as of September 2024.

Celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Breast Cancer Awareness Month will be marked in the virtual space too, with a friendly competition being hosted on UICC Connect to showcase inspiring awareness and advocacy campaigns from organisations around the world. 

Learn more about the platform and sign up

Showcasing UICC member International Cancer Institute, Kenya

As part of UICC's partnership with BBC StoryWorks, a film has been produced for the “Rewriting Cancer” series that features the International Cancer Institute in Kenya, a UICC member organisation who was awarded a grant as part of UICC’s Breast Cancer programme for its work in improving community outreach and the early detection of breast cancer in the country. The film also features Dr Miriam Mutebi, a breast surgical oncologist and UICC Board member.

“How community workers in rural Kenya offer support to women with breast cancer” was screened at the launch of the film series at the 2024 World Cancer Congress in Geneva. The film follows the journey of Rose, a dedicated care worker responsible for educating households on cancer symptoms and screening women for early detection, as well as Alice, a cancer patient who benefited from the ICI programme's efforts.