In the UK, national breast cancer screening programme commenced in 1988 ( NHS breast screening programme, 2012) and 50-64 years old british women are invited every three years to check by clinical …show more content…
It points out that not all women regularly screen for breast cancer and then the more delayed the diagnosis, the poorer outcome will be. A randomised trial of Kerrison et al., (2015) stated that sending text message reminder has increased the attendance for breast cancer screening compared to normal invitation. Hence, it should be practised in both countries to increase screening uptake.Although breast cancer is the most common female cancer worldwide, there is still lack of awareness of cancer symptom other than breast lump (www.gov.uk, 2014). Hence, it could lead to delayed diagnosis and consequently poor prognosis. In addition, not all british mothers breastfed their children exclusively at six months. Although breastfeeding has mutual benefits for both mothers and babies, especially reducing breast cancer risk, there was only 1% exclusive breastfeeding for six months in 2010 across the UK (www.unicef.org.uk, 2010). In contrast, in the United States, approximately 20% of children were breastfed exclusively in 2011 (www.cdc.gov, 2011). Therefore, breast cancer campaigns in both countries should put more effort to raise awareness of breast cancer to reduce the incidence and …show more content…
There are many conflict about the funding of cancer drugs. Some of breast cancer drugs such as Tykerb (Lapatinib) are at risk of being cut by the funding and it is claimed that the UK spends less funding on cancer drugs compared to the US and unnecessary funding on non life saving services ( Borland and Hope, 2015). Consequently, British people have less access to effective treatments which are widely available in other countries. However, cancer drug funding of NHS is projected to 340 million from April 2015 ( NHS England, 2015) that the changes will have more benefits for the treatment of cancer and it is hoped that it will cover the conflict of minimum spending on drugs. However, there is still some charges for the cancer drugs which are not in the funding list.
In the US, cancer patients have to encounter healthcare expenses strains such as hospital stays, doctors visits, investigation charges, surgery and other treatment costs because not all expenses are covered by their insurance. The co-pay is so high that there are many patients who refuse to continue cancer treatment in the US ( www.cancer.org , 2014). Consequently, it may lead to unnecessary deaths because of the money