Fatimah cuts the ribbon to mark the launch of Pink October Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
KUCHING (Oct 7): The availability of the new Contrast Enhanced Spectral Mammography (CESM) at Timberland Medical Centre here can help both surgeons and patients in determining whether to have breast conserving surgery or mastectomy.
The centre is touted to be the first healthcare facility in Sarawak that has CESM, which is able to classify both visible and hidden breast lesions whether they are of the malignant or benign tissue characteristic.
“With all the value-added clinical strengths, I hope our specialists would now be able to expand their clinical versatility and successfully plan, guide and access sophisticated procedures with greater positive clinical outcome.
“I am looking forward to seeing Timberland Medical Centre enhance its Centre of Excellence for Breast Care to a higher level,” said Minister for Women, Children and Community Wellbeing Development Sarawak Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah in launching the ‘Pink October Breast Cancer Awareness Month’ at Timberland Medical Centre yesterday.
In her speech, she also pointed out that awareness of the importance of breast cancer screening had not yet reached a satisfactory level among the communities in Sarawak.
It was reported that one in 29 women in Malaysia would develop breast cancer.
In Sarawak, only 398 cases from a population of 1.2 million women were reported to the Oncology Unit of Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) up until 2019, and a small number was recorded in private hospitals, she said.
“Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among women, and also the leading cause of cancer deaths among the gender.
“Breast cancer recorded the highest percentage, at 34.1 per cent, over other cancer types striking women in Malaysia.
“This means the incidence rate of breast cancer in Malaysia is 34.1 cases per 100,000 women in the population.”
Meanwhile, Fatimah also expressed gratitude to Timberland for creating the state-of-the-art new 3D Full Field Digital Mammography (FFDM) system with Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (DBT) and the CESM function, capable of performing mammography and interventional mammography procedures for advanced breast cancer screening, as well as for precise diagnosis of breast abnormalities.