‘Pink Corridor' drive to boost breast cancer rural awareness
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Kolkata: The 'Pink Corridor' in Bengal, a state govt initiative aimed at breast cancer awareness and reaching out with treatment by decentralising the system and empowering local hospitals through telemedicine, will be extended to include more rural areas and to cover more women 'suspected' to have the disease.
Introduced a year ago, the initiative was showcased as the 'Bengal Model' of treating the disease at the annual conference of The Association of Breast Surgeons of India (ABSICON) that started in Kolkata on Friday. As many as 59 lakh women were screened for breast cancer under the system in Bengal, with 29,000 being identified as 'suspects' and 1,900 being diagnosed with the disease.
Oncologists felt that this was by far the biggest and most successful attempt to identify and treat breast cancer patients across the state and could serve as an example for the rest of India to follow.
"The Pink Corridor has ensured quick identification and treatment for a huge number of women who had no access to treatment till 2024. Using the hub-and-spoke model and telemedicine to reach out to remote corners of Bengal, we have ensured that patients could be screened, tested, and treated at the district hospitals under guidance from the hubs.
This method is miles ahead of the rest and has scope for extension, especially through telemedicine, which is already playing a key role in taking treatment to the doorstep of patients," said Diptendra Sarkar, a member of the team of experts that supervises the Pink Corridor from the IPGMER, which acts as a centre of excellence for the initiative.
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Through its 28 centres across districts that act as spokes and nine hubs that are tertiary centres, the system has ensured that treatment begins at the nearest facilities. The Pink Corridor also includes 37 district OPDs that are armed with ultrasound machines and biopsy facilities. Once identified as a suspect, a woman is brought to these centres. Those diagnosed with breast cancer are guided to the nearest treatment centre, where the local physician connects with experts at the hubs through teleconference for guidance, and treatment begins.
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"There is a huge network of Asha workers who visit villages and teach women to self-examine for lumps that may indicate breast cancer. Those with symptoms are then sent to the local health centre, where a nurse clinically examines them and sends the 'real suspects' to the treatment centres. The unique feature of the system is that it has taken treatment to the far corners of the state for the first time. Till a year ago, the majority of these patients would either remain undiagnosed or visit Kolkata for diagnosis and treatment.
Also, we are now doing complex surgeries and breast reconstruction at the district hospitals. A silicon prosthesis implant was done on a patient at Asansol recently, while Howrah district hospital has done three to four plastic surgeries of the breast. MR Bangur Hospital has done three to four breast reconstructions," said Sarkar, also the chairman of the ABSICON organising committee.
The initiative was a step in the right direction but needed the right people to navigate it from the grassroots to the tertiary stage, said veteran oncologist Subir Ganguly. "Since 95% of breast lumps are non-cancerous, screening is very important. Secondly, quick diagnosis and treatment can make a difference, as this initiative has shown. It is equally important to counsel women to go for checks and report it to the local health authorities for screening.
Finally, health workers need to be oriented and trained for the job, which, I believe, is the key," said Ganguly.
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