Younger women are getting breast cancer

NST: IPOH: Breast cancer is on the rise and the patients are getting younger, said Ipoh Hospital surgery department head Dr Stephen Jacob.
"The trend we are seeing now is that when the younger ones contract breast cancer, it tends to be more aggressive.
"It spreads all over and there's a shorter time between the time of diagnosis and death," he said.
For example, there was a 26-year-old patient who underwent a complete treatment for breast cancer but died after the cancer spread to the rest of her body, he said.
In Ipoh Hospital, 26 women died of breast cancer in 2006 and the number increased to 27 women within the first 10 months of this year, he said.
The statistics are limited to those who died in the wards and do not include those who died at home or elsewhere, he added.
On average, about 20 per cent of cancer patients at the hospital suffer from breast cancer.
There were 189 patients admitted for breast cancer treatment at the hospital last year.
Men were also susceptible to breast cancer but such cases were extremely rare, said Dr Stephen, who encountered "one or two" cases during his 15 years as a surgeon.
"We need to get people to come to us early.
"If they come early, they can be cured," he said when highlighting a half-day forum on breast cancer awareness to be held at the hospital tomorrow.
It will be on from 8am to 1pm at the hospital's ambulatory care centre.