An Odisha Regional Round Table meeting on breast cancer was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Wednesday in association with the Novartis and the Health and Family Welfare Department.

Health Minister Naba Kishore Das inaugurated the Round Table in presence of Vice Chairman, CII, Odisha State Council Pradipta Mohanty, Head Patient Advocacy, Policy and Communication Novartis Prabhat Kumar Sinha, Engagement Manager IQVIA Dr Satya Agarwal, Senior Oncologist, Advisor to Department Health and Family Welfare Dr Dinesh Pendharkar, NCD Director/ Deputy Director/ HOD Community Medicine/ ESI/ Railways Dr RR Satpathy and Unit Head, AMRI Hospital, Bhubaneswar Dr Anuj Tiwari.

It was revealed that breast cancer has ranked number one cancer among Indian women with age adjusted rate as high as 25.8 per 1,00,000 women and mortality 12.7 per 1,00,000 women. Mortality-to-incidence ratio was found to be as high as 66 in rural registries whereas as low as eight in urban registries.  Early detection is best choice for reducing mortality.

Nearly 54 per cent Indian patients have advanced disease and 30 per cent have aggressive breast cancer subtype of Triple Negative Breast Cancer compared to 12 per cent observed in US. The Government of India and the State Government are committed to reduce the burden of breast cancer across the country and efforts are taken in prevention, promotion and treatment, said the speakers.

Through the roundtable, the Confederation of Indian Industry, Health Department in partnership with Novartis and NICPR thought of reaching out to a set of multiple stakeholders to capture the landscape of breast cancer management in India in a form of a whitepaper, they added.