Breast Cancer Meanings

Breast cancer is now the most common cancer among women in most Asian countries. Many lives are at stake. Even in places where state-of-the-art medical services are available, thousands of women in Asia are dying of the disease largely due to late presentation compared to women in most Western countries. While much progress has been made in Western health care practice to enable early detection and treatment of breast cancer, it appears that there are significant socio-cultural considerations and contexts in Asia that limit the efficacy of Western-based approaches. This volume presents conversations across Asia with breast cancer patients, their caregivers, doctors, traditional healers as well as just ordinary men and women – all on the subject of breast cancer meanings. Through the stories as told by local people in Asia about how they think and talk about breast cancer, as well as how they respond to the disease, insights on breast cancer meanings emerge. These offer new understandings into how local contexts shape those meanings and life courses – and hopefully will help medical practitioners devise new strategies to combat the disease.