Feature Story

November 18, 2008

Teaching breast health early to reduce breast cancer mortality in D.C.

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Early breast health education may be the key to lowering breast cancer mortality rates in Washington, D.C., which has the highest rates in the country, according to research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.

Project Early Awareness, a breast cancer education program of Howard University Cancer Center, brings a young survivor into high school classrooms to dispel breast cancer myths, provide breast cancer facts, and teach breast self exams.

While only about five percent of breast cancer cases occur in women under the age of 40, learning to understand breast cancer at a young age may lead to early diagnosis later in life.

Each student is given a pre-test and post-test to gauge the effectiveness of the program.

Howard University has seen students increase their comfort and ability to perform a breast self exam by 39 percent and their ability to answer breast cancer questions correctly increase by 69 percent.

The mortality rates are well above average for African-American women living in the District of Columbia.

As a part of the session, they provide students with information to take home to their families to help increase the reach of the program.

The membership includes more than 28,000 basic, translational and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and 80 other countries.

The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs.

The AACR's most recent publication and its sixth major journal, Cancer Prevention Research, is dedicated exclusively to cancer prevention, from preclinical research to clinical trials.

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