UICC’s actions on breast cancer

In order to help address the high mortality rates of breast cancer cases in low resource settings, UICC has launched a series of initiatives to encourage early detection and improve access to treatment and care. 

Since October 2020, UICC has strengthened and engaged all actors from the breast cancer community through its Breast Cancer programme. Leveraging established UICC Capacity Building programmes and convening platforms, this multi-partnership programme aims at accelerating progress in support to the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI)’s targets at the regional and global levels, with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries. The programme addresses topics such as the challenges of early detection in LMICs, supportive care for patients and in particular advanced breast cancer patients, advocacy for the GBCI targets, and integrated approaches to women’s cancers.

The Breast Cancer programme builds on the Seeding Progress and Resources for the Cancer Community (SPARC) MBC Challenge launched in 2015 in partnership with Pfizer Oncology SPARC is a global grant initiative seeking to support new ideas and projects from advocacy groups, hospital networks and other non-for-profit organisations working to address the specific needs of metastatic breast cancer patients. The SPARC MBC Challenge awarded a total of 1,580,000 USD in grants to over 50 organisations from 35 countries, providing seed funding for new initiatives alongside a package of training, networking, and mentoring.

Finally, UICC, together with the NCI’s Center for Global Health, Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI) and PAHO jointly produced the Knowledge Summaries for Comprehensive Breast Cancer Control (KSBC), a set of tools to help guide policymakers, advocates and clinicians in developing appropriate programmes and policies. Together with other oncology organisations, UICC participated in the Breast Cancer Initiative 2.5 (BCI2.5) since 2014, to reduce disparities in breast cancer outcomes and improve access to breast health care globally.

Virtual Dialogues: Breast cancer series

Harnessing UICC’s Virtual Dialogues, this series brings the breast cancer community together to tackle the growing breast cancer burden.
Despite advances and progress seen in breast cancer in recent years, current data highlights that breast cancer incidence and mortality remain the highest for cancer in women, with over 2.2 million new cases and 684,996 deaths in 2020 (GLOBOCAN 2020). This trend is only going to accelerate in the next 20 years, with a disproportionate number of cases and deaths expected to occur in low-resource settings.

To tackle the growing breast cancer burden, it is critical that improvements are made in

• early detection;
• timely access to treatment and care;
• availability of palliative and survivorship care;
• comprehensive data collection through robust cancer registries.

The breast cancer series aims to highlight these key issues and foster focused discussions amongst UICC members and renowned experts on key actions needed to reduce the global breast cancer burden.
Continuing this series, on October 3, a Virtual Dialogue was will be held on ‘Closing the care gap in metastatic breast cancer’. The session focused on number of proposed actions for change to improve and extend the lives of people living with advanced breast cancer in all countries worldwide that constitute the ABC Global Alliance Charter.