Awareness about breast cancer in males in urban area of Delhi.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer in males is still an issue that is not known to majority of the population across the globe. People in general are not aware that breast cancer can occur in males too as increasing campaigns are done to raise awareness in females. OBJECTIVE: To assess the level of awareness of male breast cancer (MBC) in males of urban population residing in the Soami Nagar colony, Panchsheel, New Delhi. METHODOLOGY: A cross sectional survey was conducted through a self-administered questionnaire to know the awareness of the occurrence of MBC, its diagnosis and criticality. RESULTS: It was found that only 19% of men were aware of the fact that breast cancer can occur in males as well and remaining 81% were ignorant. CONCLUSION: Because a whopping 81% of the surveyed population did not know that breast cancer could even occur in males, they were made aware about all the symptoms to look for and not to ignore any sort of bulge/lumps/knots that they may feel in their breast region or under the armpits. Findings of this study would serve as a baseline to focus on making people aware of this life threatening problem. Increased awareness of MBC would help males to discuss the problem in initial phase and reach out to primary health care physicians for early diagnosis and treatment.