Martha Wanjiru, Nurse Educator, Registered Palliative Care Nurse, and Breast and Cervical Cancer Advocate in Kiambu County, Kenya, shared on LinkedIn:
“From Duo Screening to Complete Cancer Care: Screening Must Be a Pathway, Not Just a Test
When a woman comes for cervical cancer screening, let us also screen for breast cancer. And when she comes for breast cancer screening, let us ask about cervical cancer screening.
This is the power of duo screening – one community encounter, two cancers, and a greater opportunity for prevention and early detection.
But when we talk about breast cancer screening, it is not only about finding a lump or identifying pain. Screening is the beginning of a continuum of care. What follows matters just as much.
- Mammogram or ultrasound
- Accurate interpretation using BI-RADS classification
- Timely biopsy and pathology results
- Staging and appropriate referral
- Access to comprehensive cancer treatment and supportive care
- Patient navigation throughout the journey, including palliative care when needed
- Receiving the patient back into the community as a survivor, with the support needed to return home and rebuild life
For cervical cancer, the pathway should include HPV DNA testing, including self-sampling, or Pap smear where appropriate; follow-up of positive results; treatment of precancerous lesions; LEEP services; biopsy and pathology follow-up; navigation; and rescreening according to guidelines.
Through a community-based approach, we can take these services closer to women where they live and work—in flower, coffee and tea farms, markets, churches, workplaces and other community spaces.
This is what Universal Health Coverage (UHC) should look like: integrated, accessible, quality care that reaches women where they are and supports them throughout the cancer care journey.
The Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI) emphasizes three critical pillars: health promotion for early detection, timely diagnosis, and comprehensive breast cancer management – with the goal of reducing breast cancer mortality by 2.5% annually.
Early detection saves lives, but navigation, timely treatment and continuity of care help save the person.
I am committed to taking breast and cervical cancer screening into the community and strengthening the pathway from screening to diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, palliative care and survivorship.
One woman. One visit. Two cancers screened. One complete pathway to hope, treatment and survivorship.”
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