News: Breast cancer care inequities cause lack of treatment, study suggests

The Lancet Breast Cancer Commission recently concluded that access inequities in breast cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and supportive care have left many patients “systematically left behind and forgotten,” MedPage Today reported.

"Recent improvements in breast cancer survival represent a great success of modern medicine. However, we can't ignore how many patients are being systematically left behind," said Charlotte Coles, PhD, of the University of Cambridge in England, the report's lead author, in a statement quoted in MedPage.

The commission found that inequities in breast cancer care were especially apparent in those with metastatic disease.

Because the commission found that the overwhelming cost of cancer treatments was the number one barrier in such receiving treatment, the commission recommended that

universal health coverage of breast cancer should be expanded "across the continuum of care" in order to eliminate the potential of financial catastrophe for families that experience breast cancer and that at least 20% (with an ultimate goal of 100%) of patients and families with the lowest incomes receive public financing and an essential package of supportive and palliative care across the breast cancer pathway.

Editor’s note: To read the MedPage Today coverage, click here. To read the Lancet journal article, click here.