Determinants of participation in a breast cancer screening trial in trivandrum district, India.

BACKGROUND: Conspicuous differences in participation rates for breast self-examination (BSE), clinical breast examination (CBE), and referral for further investigations have been observed indicating involvement of a number of different factors. This study analysed determinants for participation in different levels of the breast cancer screening process in Indian females. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An intervention group of 52,011 women was interviewed in a breast cancer screening trial in Trivandrum district, India. In order to assess demographic, socio-economic, reproductive, and cancer-related determinants of participation in BSE, CBE, and referral, uni- and multi-variate logistic regression was employed. RESULTS: Of the interviewed women, 23.2% reported practicing BSE, 96.8% had attended CBE, and 49.1% of 2,880 screen-positives attended referral. Results showed an influence of various determinants on participation; women who were currently not married or who had no family history of cancer were significantly less likely to attend the screening process at any level. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing awareness about breast cancer, early detection methods, and the advantages of early diagnoses among women, and their families, as well as health care workers offering social support, could help to increase participation over the entire screening process in India.

Clinical breast examination: preliminary results from a cluster randomized controlled trial in India.

A cluster randomized controlled trial was initiated in the Trivandrum district (Kerala, India) on January 1, 2006, to evaluate whether three rounds of triennial clinical breast examination (CBE) can reduce the incidence rate of advanced disease incidence and breast cancer mortality. A total of 275 clusters that included 115,652 healthy women, aged 30-69 years, were randomly allocated to intervention (CBE; 133 clusters; 55,844 women) or control (no screening; 142 clusters; 59,808 women) groups. Performance characteristics (sensitivity, specificity, false-positive rate, and positive predictive value) of CBE were evaluated. An intention-to-treat analysis was performed for comparison of incidence rates between the intervention and control groups. Preliminary results for incidence are based on follow-up until May 31, 2009, when the first round of screening was completed. Of the 50,366 women who underwent CBE, 30 breast cancers were detected among 2880 women with suspicious findings in CBE screening that warranted further investigations. Sensitivity, specificity, false-positive rate, and positive predictive value of CBE were 51.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 38.2% to 65.0%), 94.3% (95% CI = 94.1% to 94.5%), 5.7% (95% CI = 5.5% to 5.9%), and 1.0% (95% CI = 0.7% to 1.5%), respectively. The age-standardized incidence rates for early-stage (stage IIA or lower) breast cancer were 18.8 and 8.1 per 100,000 women and for advanced-stage (stage IIB or higher) breast cancer were 19.6 and 21.7 per 100,000 women, in the intervention and control groups, respectively.