HCM City (VNS/VNA)  — Young women aged less than 25 and mensuffering from breast cancer has become not uncommon in Vietnam, said Dr TranNguyen Ha of the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital.

“Five years ago, few patients less than 25 werediagnosed with breast cancer,” Ha said, adding that dozens of these cases noware treated at the hospital.

The latest case was a 18-year-old girl, headded.

According to him, although the prevalence ofbreast cancer is still lower in Vietnam than the global average, with 23 casesper 100,000 population, the trend is increasing. Breast cancer is most commonin Vietnam among patients aged 45 to 55, younger than the global average.

The number of patients with breast cancer hasincreased year-by-year, with nearly 2,000 incidences at the Oncology Hospital,double that of previous years.

Dr Pham Xuan Dung, Director of the OncologyHospital, said that the increasing incidences detected are the result ofimproved awareness about this cancer via government communication programmes.

The proportion of patients with breast cancerwho are diagnosed at early stages has risen to 60 percent in the last fiveyears from 40 percent in the previous time, Dung said.

“If detected at the early stages, the five-yearsurvival rate is 90 percent,” he said, adding that this positive figure is dueto advanced treatments including drugs available in the country.

However, the remaining 40 percent of patientswith breast cancer detected at late stages are a health burden for the country,Dung added.

Ha said that 20 percent of them were testedpositive for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), known as proteinoverexpression.

It causes cancerous cells to grow and spread toother organs in the body faster than in patients with normal levels of protein,and it was very difficult to treat.

Speaking at a conference on new progress in thetreatment of breast cancer with the application of HER2, which is a gene thatcan play a role in the development of breast cancer, held on November 4 in HCMCity, Ha said that new advanced drugs, which are available in the country, helpsolve this difficulty.

Dr Paul Mainwaring of Centre for PersonalisedNanomedicine in Australia said that they have not only helped prolong the livesof patients with breast cancer at these late stages but also improve thequality of life, which is very important.

“These new advanced drugs and technologies givedoctors more choices in treatment in order to bring the best benefits to theirpatients. Helping patients access treatments is very vital because these newadvanced drugs and technologies are very costly,” Dung said.

The cost is a common challenge for many countriesin the world, including Vietnam, he said, adding that Vietnam’s Governmentshould have a health insurance policy for patients with cancer, includingbreast cancer.

“The best way to solve cancer is that peopleshould visit health facilities for screenings for early detection andtreatment. The cost for treatment at the early stages is very low and theeffectiveness of the treatment at these stages is better,” he added.

The conference was held by the city OncologyHospital in co-operation with the HCM City-based representative office ofHoffmann-La Roche Ltd. –VNA