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MOBILE CANCER SCREENTING UNIT FOR VILLAGE COMMUNITY
Over 68% of India's population lives in rural areas, including hundreds of million women. Each area of around 5,000 inhabitants are allocated a female Village Health Nurse (VHN), who is responsible for disseminating and providing basic health services and information. But the numbers are unmanageable and even if diagnosed, the effective treatment of cancer is limited by social factors.
Women in whom cancer is detected by VHNs, even at a late stage, often have no voice in the matter and the decision to get a mammography check-up and treatment would be taken by their husbands and mother-in-law. Many husbands are agricultural laborers and they do not understand why their wives need to come to town for an examination and to stay away from work, when they appeared fine on the outside and are able to walk.
Most cancer patients therefore arrive in the city hospitals in an incurably advanced state of their disease. As seen in the video, nothing much except pain relief can be offered at that point.
Facts
By 2020, it is predicted in various studies that one fifth of the world's cancer cases will be found in India. Cervical and breast cancer are the most common cause of cancer deaths among women in India, but early detection and proper treatment can improve this prognosis and can make cancer curable. The chances of women surviving first or second stage breast and many other cancers are very bright, if a diagnosis can be made in time. The female population in rural areas should have a free annual screening by mobile mammography and ultra sound.
What we are working for
The custom-built CANCER screening bus, will screen women in a safe and comfortable environment throughout Tamil Nadu for the most common types of cancer, such as breast, cervical and oral cancers.
Digital mammography and ultrasound are the basic tools of the van, but in risky cases biopsies can provide for more clarity.
Cervical examination can in most cases diagnose malignant cancer cells, that can be removed in the Screening Bus under local anesthetic via the so-called LEEP (loop electrosurgical excision procedure) technique. LEEP is a new method, recently developed by German doctors in Berlin, and that has since been used successfully in some Indian cities and villages.
Our first pilot project with Santha Cancer Foundation in Trichy.
In collaboration with the CSF in Trichy, Rotary District 3000 have been helping women for more than 6 years using Analog Mammobus, all around Tamil Nadu and screened more than 100,000 women for breast cancer.
Cost
The equipment includes screening apparatus for cancers of the breast, cervix, lung, and mouth with sophisticated technology such as digital mammography, 3D ultra-sound screening and simpler methods such as pap smears, as well as treatment methods such as LEEP.
Your contribution will pay for initial build and setup MOBILE CANCER SCREENING and a pathologist, a technical assistant for one year, who will train the other doctors in the hospital. The Cancer Institute in Trichy will manage the day to day functioning and executing of project along with Rotary volunteers.
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