Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment in Low- and Mid-Resource Settings: the Role of Resource-Stratified Clinical Practice Guidelines

AbstractPurpose of ReviewOne of the most important recent advances in the management of cancer patients have become the development of guidelines. Guidelines are usually evidence-based or international consensus guidelines. Those guidelines may not be applicable worldwide, especially where resources are limited. This prompted initiatives for the development of resource-stratified guidelines so that health care providers and authorities can do the best they can with the resources they have, while working on improving their resources. We will describe the process of development of those guidelines and briefly review recommendations for awareness, screening, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer, focusing on countries and special populations with limited resources.Recent FindingsThe World Health Organization (WHO) described three resource scenarios (low-resource, middle-resource, and high-resource scenarios) in order to facilitate the establishment of national cancer control plans. The Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI), as an initiative group with goals to improve the care of patients with breast cancer in low- and mid-resource settings, identified four levels of resource availability (basic, limited, enhanced, and maximal) with comprehensive sets of recommendations for each. BHGI published resource-stratified breast cancer guidelines starting in 2006, and later on updated them and focused on implementation and health systems. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (...
Source: Current Breast Cancer Reports - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research