Why were some of the NFL players sporting the color pink in a recent game? They were showing their support for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The month of October is known as the pink month. This month is used to spread awareness and information regarding breast cancer among women. Read on to know more about the national breast cancer awareness month.

An Overview

You can even do your own bid to support efforts to find a possible cure and to ensure that every woman has direct and easy access to mammography screenings. For around 20 years, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month has been observed every October.

This provides a time to reflect on our loved ones who have both won and lost the battle against breast cancer. This also gives a chance to raise awareness toward finding a certain cure, which includes encouraging women to get regular mammograms.

Around 230,000 women in the United States will be diagnosed with this type of cancer. Also, it is predicted that nearly 40,000 patients will succumb to death from this disease, as per the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Breast Cancer Screening – The Importance

Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a general statement that mammography screening can help in lowering breast cancer mortality by detecting it in its early stages. During the early stage, the chances of a successful treatment are very high.

She said that if around 90 percent of women ages 40 and older received breast cancer screening, around 3,700 lives can be saved every year. Costs actually deter several patients from receiving these crucial screenings. As per the Affordable Care Act, general women’s preventive health care – like screenings for cervical cancer and mammograms – is covered with no extra costs involved.

This type of cancer is known as a heterogeneous disease, which occurs when any malignant cancer cells develop in the breast tissues. The cancer is not fatal always, as per the HHS.

The Month of Awareness

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a well-known international health campaign held annually which is organized by several, prominent breast cancer charities in order to raise funds every October for ongoing research into its primary cause, diagnosis, cure, treatment and prevention. Also, this is the time to increase the general awareness about the cancer.

Apart from providing a base for different charities to raise awareness about the disease and the charities work, this month is a special opportunity to remind women worldwide about the importance of breast cancer screening.

History

The main aim of this month from the beginning was to promote the significance of mammography as the primary effective tool to prevent and fight breast cancer. The Senior Corporate Vice President of Estee Lauder, Evelyn Lauder, forged The Breast Cancer Research Foundation in 1993.

It was she who denoted the pink ribbon as the symbol of breast cancer, although it was not the only time that this ribbon has been used as a symbol of breast cancer. The Susan G. Komen Foundation in the fall of1991 had actually distributed pink ribbons to the participants of the New York City race organized for the breast cancer survivors.

To know more about Breast Cancer in Young Women, click here