October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Specialists urge to undergo annual screenings

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS. Breast cancer cases are significantly growing in Armenia. Specialists urge all women to undergo an annual screening starting from the age of 20, and do mammography once in two years starting from the age of 40. This will allow to detect the disease at an early stage, to prevent it and avoid further complications.

During a regular screening 39-year-old Astghik got informed that she has a breast cancer. She says everything was so unexpected that she even didn’t manage to feel depressed thanks to her family members.

“When I imagined what my parents were feeling, that gave me a strength, that I must feel well, be happy so that they won’t worry and everything will be all right”, she said.

After discovering the presence of the disease, Astghik started reading, studying it and understood that the treatment of breast cancer in Armenia is in a very good condition.

“We have wonderful specialists and good stories, which gave me much strength, and I was sure that I will be treated as initially I was very pessimistic”, she said.

Astghik says the first fear people with cancer have is the hair loss.

“In my case, all the city knows me with hairs, but when you face this situation, you understand that this is the smallest thing that could happen. I lost my hairs, but after the chemotherapythey were restored. A year has passed since my treatment. I already have hairs and can tie them back”, she said.

Astghik urges everyone having the same disease not to despair and be very optimistic.

“In fact, there are also good things here, for example, we start appreciating what we have, which we didn’t do in the past”, she said.

For already a year Astghik continues helping people suffering cancer through social platforms.

“When cancer was detected, and I was not well informed about the disease, I wanted an exchange of experience as there were things that I didn’t want to ask the specialists, but, unfortunately, I didn’t find that platform in Armenia. We have a group on Facebook, which is called “Cancer-Chemotherapy” and it is for those women who are passing through this difficult path”, she said.

Oncologist-surgeon at the National Oncology Center Metaksya Mkrtchyan reminds that October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, calling it one more opportunity to raise the necessity of early diagnosis of women and the reliable treatment if the disease is detected.

“We all know that the ordinary surgical methods, which are being used during the breast surgery, create major difficulties to women, negatively affecting their life quality. But now we have two exclusive devices in our Center which allow to treat women, who have detected breast cancer at an early stage, with new surgical methods, by keeping their life quality”, she said.

The surgeon said that 80-85 % of women visit them at an early stage of the disease, and almost all women are in favor of keeping the breasts, not removing.