More radiologists needed in breast cancer fight

As the nation prepares for another Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, one ongoing issue of concern for Sandra Samuels, president of Jamaica Reach to Recovery (JR2R), is that islandwide, the public sector lacks enough radiologists to conduct needed mammograms.

Despite improved technology being readily available to assist in the battle against breast cancer, Samuels stressed yesterday that the nation, by and large, is failing women, especially poor women, with radiologists not being readily available to match the number of mammograms on demand.

Samuels was speaking during the press launch for the ICWI Pink Run, which was held at the Toyota Jamaica showroom in St Andrew.

She said that due to a limited number of technicians and radiologists in Jamaica to read the results for patients currently in the public system, and especially at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), which provides the only free access to screening, they can now only do diagnostic mammograms and not screening mammograms.

“The difference is, one, you know you have cancer, and so you get a screening. And screening [mammogram] is that you go in and you want to get a screen, and there’s only one radiologist that has to deal with that very long list of patients as this is the only option for the poor,” Samuels said.

“We at Jamaica Reach to Recovery visit KPH every second Tuesday, where we see newly diagnosed women and let them know that we are here to assist them. This is where we get most of our applications for assistance for bone scans, etc,” she said.

Breast cancer, recognised globally as the most frequently diagnosed cancer, has overtaken lung cancer in its incidence rate. One in every four cancer cases diagnosed in women is attributed to breast cancer.

The 2020 statistics from Global Cancer Statistics (GLOBACON) paints a bleak picture of 2.3 million freshly diagnosed and 685,000 fatalities worldwide.

“That’s from 2020, and you know there’s more now … . In Jamaica, GLOBACON 2022 statistics state that breast cancer accounts for 35 per cent of all cancers, and incidence of breast cancer is 71 per 100,000 women,” Samuels said.

“Predictions for 2040 are even more unsettling, with numbers projected to rise to three million new cases worldwide and a devastating one million deaths,” she said.

Challenge for young persons

With this problem, Samuels has one call to action. That is for young persons and students to consider studying radiology and remaining in the country to carry out analysis and testing.

“We have a challenge that I must put out to young persons looking at career options. There is a shortage of radiologists in the public sector. We need to have full use of these two important screening machines, but without personnel, the hands of the Government are tied,” Samuels said.

“I would also like to plea and challenge radiologists in private practice to not forget about the poor and needy. If you could give some hours - one day per week, one day per month - it would go a far way to help the need of access to screening in the public sector and shorten the very long wait until more personnel become available in Jamaica or until we get to a stage where our machines are advanced enough for AI integration to read the films, thus reducing turnaround time as reading would be automated,” she said.

In offering a solution, she also said that some countries at Jamaica’s level outsource reading capabilities to India and other countries, which is another option that could be considered.

The ICWI Pink Run fundraiser will be held on October 27 at a new starting point – Emancipation Park – in the capital city. Online registration is now open and the run, which has been a calendar event for the past 16 years, will share all proceeds with the JR2R, the breast cancer arm of the Jamaica Cancer Society.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com