Renuka Chowdhary announces breast wellness programme

Hyderabad, Jan 3 (UNI) Union Women and Child Welfare Minister Renuka Chowdhary today announced a 'breast wellness programme', in partnership with the Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences here.

Inaugurating the KIMS-Ushalakshmi Centre for breast diseases, the first of its kind in the country set up in collaboration with the London-based Jarvis Breast Screening Centre, the Minister exhorted women who had crossed the age of 40 to undergo digital mammography, as early detection of breast cancer would provide a new lease of life to those suffering from the disease.

Under this public-private partnership initiative, women would be screened for breast cancer at 50 per cent subsidised rate of Rs 1,250 from March eight for three months, she said.

The state-of-the-art digital mammography equipment would revolutionise breast cancer detection at an early stage, Centre Director P Raghu Ram said.

With over one lakh new cases being diagonised each year, the incidence of breast cancer in the country was rising at an alarming rate and had become the most common cancer affecting women, paricularly in urban India, he added.

UNI SM GKT MSJ BD2116