Breast cancer is the most common female cancer worldwide. This disease represents one of the main points of public health concern today, aggravating the situation due to the numerous barriers to preventing, treating, and rehabilitation patients affected by this health condition. In this way, this letter to the editor aims to discuss the barriers and challenges in preventing, treating, and rehabilitating breast cancer patients.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Encarnação, Roberto Gonçalves

Encarnação, Samuel Gonçalves

Monteiro, A.M.

Santos, Ryvia

Teixeira, José Eduardo

English

Biblioteca Digital do IPB

  __________________________________________________________________2023, 3(1):25-27  LabD – Journal of Sport Sciences                                                                                                                           Barriers And Challenges In The Prevention, Treatment, And Rehabilitation Of Breast Cancer Patients  Ryvia dos Santos1; Roberto Gonçalves Almeida da Encarnação2; Samuel Gonçalves Almeida da Encarnação3,4,5; José Eduardo Teixeira4,6,7; António Miguel Monteiro4,6,8*  1 Health Sciences Academic Unit - Physiotherapy Course, Universidade Federal de Jataí, 75801-615, Jataí, Goiás, Brazil; 2 Faculty of Medicine, Universidade Federal de Minas, Gerais, Avenida Professor Alfredo Balena, 30130-100, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil; 3 Department of Sport Sciences, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Ciudad Universitaria de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain; 4 Department of Sport Sciences, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB), 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal; 5 CI-ISCE, Douro Higher Institute of Educational Sciences, 4560-708 Penafiel; 6 Research Centre in Sports Sciences, Health Sciences and Human Development (CIDESD), 5001-801 Vila Real, Portugal; 7 Department of Sport Sciences, Instituto Politécnico da Guarda, 6300-559 Guarda, Portugal; 8*Centro de Investigação em Educação Básica (CIEB), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Portugal. Email: Mmonteiro@ipb.pt, phone: +351 962 970 784.  Abstract Breast cancer is the most common female cancer worldwide. This disease represents one of the main points of public health concern today, aggravating the situation due to the numerous barriers to preventing, treating, and rehabilitation patients affected by this health condition. In this way, this letter to the editor aims to discuss the barriers and challenges in preventing, treating, and rehabilitating breast cancer patients.  Keywords: Breast Neoplasm, breast malignant tumors, therapeutics, prophylaxis, quality of life.  Letter to Editor Breast cancer is the most common female neoplasm worldwide, drastically reducing the patient’s quality of life. In two decades, the number of individuals diagnosed with this pathology has practically doubled, from 10 million in 2000 to 19.3 million in 2020. Deaths also increased substantially, from 6.2 million in 2000 to 10 million in 2020 (WHO, 2021). Numerous barriers to patient’s prevention, treatment, and habilitation (Jayasekera & Mandelblatt, 2020; WHO, 2021) put this pathology as one of the main points of public health concern nowadays. Considering the importance of stating and understanding the multifactorial complexity in the breast cancer patient’s quality of life, this letter to the editor aims to discuss the barriers and challenges in the prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of breast cancer patients. Prevention involves reducing the disease's risks and acting on modifiable factors (Kashyap et al., 2022). Thus, the main prophylactic strategies are linked to changes in the habits of individuals, focusing on a healthier life, such as a less industrialized and more organic diet, the performance of physical activities, and the reduction or even the non-consumption of alcohol and cigarettes (Fagundo-Rivera et al., 2021). However, most of the world's population does not adopt healthy attitudes due to the complexity of cultural, social, and economic factors. Most individuals cannot access organic and truly nutritious foods, mainly because of their high market value, demonstrating that the socioeconomic component affects prevention due to the marked inequalities of modern life (Di Meglio et al., 2021). In addition, in the harsh daily routine, most people cannot set aside time to perform physical activities, having a habit of sedentary life, leading to the development of overweight.  It is necessary to highlight   __________________________________________________________________2023, 3(1):25-27  LabD – Journal of Sport Sciences                                                                                                                           that many individuals with such attitudes may not consider the serious risks associated with these practices, which are deleterious to their health and may increase the chance of developing breast tumors (Grabinski & Brawley, 2022). Cultural components strengthen these barriers since, in some societies, alcohol and cigarette consumption is typical, and these two factors are highly associated with developing malignant tumors (Di Meglio et al., 2021). In cultures where women - the most affected person by this type of cancer - have their freedom deprived and cannot access health services, not performing preventive examinations, they tend to have a higher risk of developing breast malignant tumors (Grabinski & Brawley, 2022). Many people cannot even access dignified treatment, especially in countries where the health system is not public, depending on hospitals and philanthropic foundations, which are mostly overwhelmed (Kashyap et al., 2022; WHO, 2021). Another point is the populations that live in remote and less populated areas, sometimes forgotten by the State, not having health care. These issues affect not only hospital treatment but also the rehabilitation of patients (Vidt et al., 2022). Many cannot even follow the necessary protocol, which involves multiple factors such as diet, physiotherapy, use of medicines, and recurrent consultations with medical specialists until they are considered free of the disease (Di Meglio et al., 2021; WHO, 2021). Thus, it is noticeable that even with the advances of medicine and other sciences in the treatment of this pathology in recent decades, there are still numerous factors that collaborate so that many barriers remain in the prevention, treatment, and also in rehabilitation of these individuals (Invernizzi et al., 2021). A much broader look is required at what is often considered only a public health problem but which hides issues that go much further and that are linked to the way society acts, its choices, its ills, and its countless differences (Vidt et al., 2022; WHO, 2021). Another aspect is the barriers many people face in accessing cancer therapeutics; socioeconomic factors can further aggravate this problem. Most individuals in social and economic vulnerability situations cannot obtain quality treatment. Even though many countries offer a public health service, not all people can have access, and in addition, the treatment may not be efficient, either because of the lack of health supplies or because of the lack of a specific look at each patient, because the condition that affects one is not the same as that which affects another (WHO, 2021). In this sense, health policies must stimulate from higher to lower state instances until the appropriate quality standards are reached world places, thus, increasing not only the initiative of scientific evidence production but also investing increasing resources and applications in using this evidence in real-time, thus, providing democratic possibilities to have a time-efficient diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation..  References Di Meglio, A., Soldato, D., Presti, D., & Vaz-Luis, I. (2021). Lifestyle and quality of life in patients with early-stage breast cancer receiving adjuvant endocrine therapy. Current Opinion in Oncology, 33(6), 553–573. https://doi.org/10.1097/CCO.0000000000000781 Fagundo-Rivera, J., Allande-Cussó, R., Ortega-Moreno, M., García-Iglesias, J. J., Romero, A., Ruiz-Frutos, C., & Gómez-Salgado, J. (2021). Implications of Lifestyle and Occupational Factors on the Risk of Breast Cancer in Shiftwork Nurses. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 9(6), 649. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9060649 Grabinski, V. F., & Brawley, O. W. (2022). Disparities in Breast Cancer. Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics of North America, 49(1), 149–165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ogc.2021.11.010 Invernizzi, M., Venetis, K., Sajjadi, E., Piciotti, R., de Sire, A., & Fusco, N. (2021). Understanding the biology of volumetric muscle loss for an individualized exercise rehabilitation approach in breast cancer patients. Current Opinion in Pharmacology, 58, 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coph.2021.03.007   __________________________________________________________________2023, 3(1):25-27  LabD – Journal of Sport Sciences                                                                                                                           Jayasekera, J., & Mandelblatt, J. S. (2020). Systematic Review of the Cost Effectiveness of Breast Cancer Prevention, Screening, and Treatment Interventions. Journal of Clinical Oncology: Official Journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, 38(4), 332–350. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.19.01525 Kashyap, D., Pal, D., Sharma, R., Garg, V. K., Goel, N., Koundal, D., Zaguia, A., Koundal, S., & Belay, A. (2022). Global Increase in Breast Cancer Incidence: Risk Factors and Preventive Measures. BioMed Research International, 2022, 9605439. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9605439 Vidt, M. E., Heitzenrater, J., Dodge, D., Potochny, J., Widders, K., Paulishak, M., Ravnic, D., Henry, C. R., Green, M., Kass, R., & Schmitz, K. H. (2022). The role of physical arm function and demographic disparities in breast cancer survivors’ ability to return to work. Supportive Care in Cancer: Official Journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-022-07449-w WHO. (2021). Breast cancer now most common form of cancer: WHO taking action. https://www.who.int/news/item/03-02-2021-breast-cancer-now-most-common-form-of-cancer-who-taking-action 

Barriers and challenges in the prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of breast cancer patients

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Barriers and challenges in the prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of breast cancer patients

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