Breast Cancer Screening in Rural Telangana, India

India is 3rd in top 10 incidence and prevalence of breast cancer in the world but leads in top 10 mortality in the world. While the 5 year survival for breast cancer in India is around 66%, the 5 year survival in Western countries is around 90%. The state of Telangana, with a population of 35 million people, only owns one mammogram machine, making it difficult to use this method to conduct mass screening in rural populations. The state government has identified breast cancer screening as one of five areas they would like initiatives to focus on. We are a team of medical students from Michigan and are collaborating with the Institute for Rural Health Studies (IRHS) to implement a breast cancer screening program. While we initially intended to use thermography to address this issue, we have since determined that it is not the best solution. After speaking to breast radiologists and people working on breast cancer screening projects in other developing countries with limited resources, we decided that the most effective intervention would be a mammogram, the gold standard here in the US. We are in the process of determining whether installing a mammogram in the district hospital or building a mobile mammogram van for this district is more feasible. 

A group of medical students travelled to India in March 2019 to work with IRHS to identify an intervention. While in India, we arranged a free mobile mammogram camp through Omega hospital. The camp was very well received and emphasized the need for a mammogram in this district. Multiple patients had referrals for mammograms and were planning to travel far in order to get the mammogram were it not for the free camp we arranged. Female doctors working at the hospital were thrilled with the camp as they themselves never had the opportunity to get a mammogram. 

We are still identifying which mammogram machine we will buy and will update the target goal once we have. The timeline for this project is long and it will take many months to implement this project - we will update all donors throughout the process. We would appreciate any donation you can make in order to help IRHS buy a mammogram machine. IRHS is a 501(c)(3) organization and donations are tax deductible in the US. 

IRHS: http://www.ruralhealthindia.org 

Feel free to contact us if you have questions about our project!