The Chosen Health Care Essay -- Health, Breast Cancer

The chosen health care need that this assignment will focus on is Breast Cancer as each year more than a quarter of a million people are diagnosed with Cancer in the United Kingdom, Macmillan (2007). Breast Cancer was chosen as the health care need as people’s awareness of Breast cancer need to be raised. Also through out this assignment the sociological and psychological aspect of breast cancer will be looked at and also the global national and local initiatives will be looked at as well for anyone receiving or caring for someone with breast cancer. Breast cancer develops when a single cell begins to multiply rapidly and forms a tumour; some cells make break away and travel to other parts of the body starting a new tumour cancer research (2004). Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer in women, Rosto (2009). Even though breast cancer in women is common, there are also 341 men in the United Kingdom diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, cancer research (2011). In the West Midlands there were 4,222 case of breast cancer in 2009. The number of cancer cases and crude incidence rates continue to increase annually as the population of the West Midlands ages, west midlands intelligence unit (2011). Breast cancer affects mainly 50-64 year olds in the west midlands. However breast cancer still remains the most common form of cancer in females in the West Midlands, it has a strong negative association with deprivation usually found in the more affluent sections of the population, west midlands intelligence unit (2010). In 2009 the five year survival rates were over 80% for breast cancer patients WMIU (2010). The number of deaths to cancer in the west midlands has remained steady over the decade with 13,430 deaths in 20... ...f the absolute benefits and harms of mammography screening for breast cancer remains a subject of discussion. The estimates from individual randomized trials and service screening programmes suggest that between 300 and 500 women need to be screened every 2–3 years for 10 years to prevent one death from breast cancer.1,2 Harms of screening include the anxiety and inconvenience associated with screening and with suspicious screening findings, which do not result in a diagnosis of cancer, and over diagnosis, the last of which has attracted considerable interest recently.3–6 Over diagnosis is defined as the diagnosis of a cancer as a result of screening that would not have been diagnosed in the woman’s lifetime had screening not taken place. Estimates of over diagnosis range from less than 10% of tumours diagnosed in a screening programme to around 50%. Duffy (2010)