The global burden of women's cancers: a grand challenge in global health.

Every year, more than 2 million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer, yet where a woman lives, her socioeconomic status, and agency largely determines whether she will develop one of these cancers and will ultimately survive. In regions with scarce resources, fragile or fragmented health systems, cancer contributes to the cycle of poverty. Proven and cost-effective interventions are available for both these common cancers, yet for so many women access to these is beyond reach. These inequities highlight the urgent need in low-income and middle-income countries for sustainable investments in the entire continuum of cancer control, from prevention to palliative care, and in the development of high-quality population-based cancer registries. In this first paper of the Series on health, equity, and women's cancers, we describe the burden of breast and cervical cancer, with an emphasis on global and regional trends in incidence, mortality, and survival, and the consequences, especially in socioeconomically disadvantaged women in different settings.

Health seeking behavior among cancer patients attending Ocean Road Cancer Institute, Tanzania.

OBJECTIVES: To characterize cancer patients and to determine the associated health seeking behaviours. METHODS: Between September 2005 and February 2006, we collected data using structured and semi-structured interviews among new cancer patients attending the ORCI. Findings are summarized using univarite and bivariate analyses. RESULTS: There were 330 cancer patients during the study period. The mean age was 48 (SD = 13.5) years ranging between 21 and 84 years. The majority, 205 (62.1%), were females. More than two thirds of all patients, that is 225 (68.2%), presented at the ORCI at advanced stages of disease. Many patients reported to have neither heard, 193 (58.5%), nor to know cancer symptoms, 203 (61.5%). Only 185 (56.1%) of all patients reported their willingness to disclose and a freedom to talk about the disease. Risk factors for cancer staging were sex, patient's education status, awareness and knowledge of disease symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions targeted to improve health care seeking behaviour among cancer patients need to include health education and sensitization specifically of cancer disease, establish a strong referral mechanisms at primary health level and to start a population cancer registry for monitoring and evaluation purposes.