Are rural women aware of breast cancer and do they practice breast self-examination? A cross-sectional study in a rural hospital in South India.

Breast cancer remains a public health problem with 2.09 million cases and 627,000 deaths in the world each year.[1] Breast cancer has overtaken cervical cancer to become the most common cancer among Indian women.[2] While mortality due to breast cancer is decreasing in developed countries, in India both hospital- and population-based cancer registries indicate that the incidence, as well as mortality of breast cancer, is on the rise.[345] The age of the incidence of breast cancer in Asian countries is between 40 and 50 years, while it is 60–70 years in Western countries,[6] indicating that Asian women in their productive years are being affected. Though breast cancer allows for early diagnosis and successful treatment, survival seems to be poor in developing countries owing to a lack of awareness and screening along with poor access to timely and standard care.[78