A woman with metastatic breast cancer in Northern Ireland is campaigning to ensure patients like her are counted in cancer registries.
A Northern Ireland woman with an incurable form of breast cancer has been campaigning for patients like her to be counted and “no longer invisible”. Ann McBrien was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer six years ago, which occurs when breast cancer spreads to another part of the body such as the liver, lungs, brain, or bones. The average survival is two to three years for metastatic breast cancer patients.
Crucially, patients like Ann with secondary breast cancer are not routinely counted in Cancer Registries worldwide, leaving this group of patients feeling overlooked and forgotten. A new study funded by Cancer Focus Northern Ireland and published today in JAMA Network Open estimates there are around 250 patients diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer annually in Northern Ireland, and almost 1,000 patients are currently living with the disease. It's hoped that this landmark study of Northern Ireland's patients with metastatic breast cancer, often referred to as secondary breast cancer, will help policy makers improve services for this patient group. Ann, who previously worked as an accountant in the NHS, along with fellow patient, the late Julie Anne Lillis, campaigned for metastatic breast cancer patients in Northern Ireland to be counted, and a clinical audit of their care carried out. She explained: “I was diagnosed with primary breast cancer in 2013, but in 2019 my cancer came back in my lungs as metastatic breast cancer. I was shocked to find that cancer reoccurrences are not identified in the Cancer Registry’s statistics. This leaves patients feeling invisible and left behind. “Knowing the importance of data to plan and allocate the correct resources to treatments and care, I wanted to do something to address this information ga
Cancer Metastatic Breast Cancer Patient Advocacy Northern Ireland Healthcare
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