Gender inequality and discrimination hinder cancer diagnosis in women

Health experts are calling for a “feminist approach” to cancer to tackle inequalities as research shows 800,000 women worldwide die every year because they are denied optimal care.

Cancer is one of the biggest killers of women and is one of the top three leading causes of premature death in almost every country on every continent.

But gender inequality and discrimination reduce women’s ability to avoid cancer risk and hinder their ability to receive timely diagnosis and quality care, according to a report published in the Lancet journal.

The largest report of its kind, which examined women and cancer in 185 countries, found that unequal power dynamics in societies around the world have a “huge negative impact” on how women perceive cancer prevention and treatment.

Particular attention was paid to “women’s cancers,” including breast and cervical cancers, despite lung and colorectal cancers being the top three causes of death from the disease, the researchers said.

The Commission brought together a multidisciplinary and diverse team from around the world. It brought together experts in gender studies, human rights, law, economics, social sciences, cancer epidemiology, prevention and treatment, and patient advocates to analyze how women around the world experience cancer.

He calls for a new feminist cancer treatment program to address gender inequality.

“The impact of patriarchal society on the experiences of women with cancer has gone largely unnoticed,” said Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, senior clinical research consultant at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health and co-chair of the panel.

“Across the world, women’s health often focuses on reproductive and maternal health, consistent with narrow anti-feminist definitions of women’s value and role in society, while cancer remains grossly underrepresented.

“Our commission highlights that gender inequality significantly impacts the experience of women with cancer. To solve this problem, we need cancer to be considered a priority issue in women’s health, and we call for the immediate implementation of a feminist approach to cancer,” the doctor said.

A second study published in the Lancet Global Health suggests that 1.5 million premature cancer deaths among women under 70 in 2020 could have been prevented by eliminating exposure to key risk factors or through early detection and diagnosis .

The study analyzed premature cancer deaths among women aged 30 to 69 and found that an additional 800,000 lives could be saved each year if all women had access to optimal cancer treatment.

About 1.3 million women of all ages died in 2020 due to the four main risk factors for cancer: tobacco, alcohol, obesity and infections. But the cancer burden in women caused by these four risk factors is “widely underestimated,” the report says.

For example, a 2019 study found that only 19% of women undergoing breast cancer screening in the UK knew that alcohol was a major risk factor for breast cancer.

“Discussions about cancer in women often focus on ‘women’s cancers,’ such as breast and cervical cancer,” said Dr. Isabel Surjomataram, co-chair of the panel. “But about 300,000 women under 70 die every year from lung cancer and 160,000 from colorectal cancer: two of the three leading causes of cancer death among women worldwide.