October is marked as the breast cancer awareness month worldwide. In Qatar, different organisations, groups and government offices have been organising events to raise awareness about the deadly disease, early diagnosis and treatment. 
In this regard, Regus, a company that organises corporate offices, recently arranged an interactive session with an expert from Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), for its customers and different community representatives.
Simona Arfene, Community Manager at Regus, said, “There are plenty of ways to get involved and support people that are affected or had been affected by breast cancer. Intentionally I am saying people and not women because Dr Mohammad Hajaj, Senior Consultant Radiologist at HMC, explained to us through a presentation that how men can also be affected by it too.”
She added, “By organising this event, we aim to create awareness among women around us, at least with some advices, knowledge on when, where and why we need to go for a check-up and that there are many ways of cure.”
“In Qatar, every resident possesses a health care card and can go for a free check-up at HMC. We invited clients from all our 10 business centres in Qatar and the feedback was very positive after Dr Hajaj answered numerous relevant questions. The event was held for fundraising in collaboration with Qatar Cancer Society,” she noted.
Talking to Community, Dr Hajaj said, “I am a Senior Consultant Breast Radiologist. I mainly work for the women hospital. I have been in Doha since last December. Before that I used to work as a Senior Radiologist in UK for about eleven years. My presentation was very simple. I wanted the audience to understand the basic facts about breast cancer and about early diagnosis. Cancer is a disease that is curable if diagnosed at an early stage.” He added, “In Qatar, we have a national breast screening programme. Women of 45 onwards are eligible for the screening. But if someone wants to get screening done earlier, there is no issue. I also encourage women to go for screening at the age of 40. From 40 onwards women need to have mammography once in a year to detect any potential breast disease at an early stage in order to treat and cure it completely.”
About the need for self-detection, Dr Hajaj said, “It is a part of the detection process. Women know their body. Self-inspection of the breasts is very important. They can detect any chance that might signal some change or irregular thing. They can ask for advice.”
Regarding the role of lifestyle contributing towards the cancer, he said, “All the data and knowledge on all kinds of cancer reflects the importance of a healthy lifestyle. It has been noticed that the breast cancer mostly affects the women not following a healthy lifestyle, the women with obesity and the women who smoke.”
He further said, “The participants asked very interesting questions about imaging modalities, age, influences and causes of breast cancer, male breast cancer, and genetics. Such kind of programmes raise awareness.”
“I made the participants aware about how having a health card in Qatar gives them a good opportunity to go for a regular screening. My only piece of advice for women is to go for early diagnosis.” He noted.
Ada Alpaslan, who works for a medcial company, said, “Most of the women are afraid of mammogram. The participants today learnt that if they have regular examinations, they can avoid the cancer and control their life. It was a very important message received from Dr Hajaj. Mammogram is a bit painful procedure but we should not avoid it. Today, we understood the importance of the age in having breast cancer diagnosis. We learnt that follow-ups are important. We got more information about different treatments available for the cancer.”
Related Story