FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 7

The only Cancer Prevention Organization committed to all preventable cancer with special focus on all people of African Heritage is alarmed at new mammography guidelines.  ACCI is committed to cancer prevention among African Americans and the African continent.  ACCI plans to support the current mammography guidelines.

Africa Cancer Care Inc (ACCI), an organization devoted to propagating information on preventable cancers here in the US among minority populations and the continent of Africa is shocked at the recent screening guidelines for breast cancer.  ACCI has been working very hard the past 4 years encouraging early screening for women of African heritage.  It is an established fact that although more white women get breast cancer, more women of African heritage dies from the disease.  Breast cancer is known to occur earlier in black women and more aggressive.  Traveling to various countries in the African continent on prevention missions, we have seen first hand the scourge of breast can. It is affecting both the young and the elderly but more so among women of child bearing age between the ages of 25 to 45.  We even found advanced breast cancer in young girls less than 20 years who are unmarried and have had no children.  We are now just getting to the point where these women are beginning to take early screening seriously and asking for screening locations and availability of mammogram only to have new recommendations contradicting the need for mammography by age 40.  I thought we should be working on developing mammogram capable of identifying abnormality in younger females with dense breast in order to help these susceptible young girls.

We think it’s a big mistake to change the current recommendations especially as it affects women of African heritage.  The current recommendation by the task force to screen women from the age of 50 years as opposed to age 40 is unacceptable and will only result in delayed diagnosis and reduced survivorship.  The current recommendation that women generally should undergo mammography every 2 years instead of annually also compounds the problem.  This new recommended guideline may be adequate for Caucasians and Hispanics; it certainly could mean a death sentence for many African American women and women in the continent. ACCI will continue to preach early screening, early detection for we know that’s the key to survival for all cancers.  We need to continue to encourage African Americans to undergo yearly mammography and to have their first mammogram by age 40.  Just  like prostate cancer where black men start screening earlier because of earlier occurrence and aggressive nature of disease in this population, black women should also initiate mammography earlier that their white counterparts.

Furthermore, the recommendation available for people with family history of colorectal cancer should also be extended to women with family history of breast cancer.  This group of women should start screening earlier in life even if screening only entails clinical screening. 

Self-breast examination is also being advised against.  The reality is that this is the only method of screening available to most women in developing countries where equipments for screening and expertise are simply unavailable.  We therefore have to continue to encourage women to check themselves. 

Prevention and early detection is the only currently known guarantee for cure and survivorship. We have to stick to early mammograms and fight for it.  Insurance companies should continue to pay for this life saving procedure.  It is certainly cheaper than the alternative.