Dr Eisuke Fukuma, Director of Breast Cancer, Kameda Medical Centre at Chiba, Japan, has done pioneering work in the field of endoscopic breast surgery and cryosurgery as a nonsurgical ablation.

He was recently in India to attend a conference on Minimal Invasive Surgery, hosted during the 35th Annual Conference of the Association of Surgeons of India, UP Chapter, at Lucknow, India, where he wowed everyone with his simplicity of manners and surgical expertise in the field of Endoscopic Breast Surgery.

In an exclusive interview to Citizen News Service (CNS), he spoke at length on the recent advances made in the area of breast surgery.

Breast cancer is on the rise in India, with 80,000 new cases being added every year and an annual death toll of more than 14,000. Yet there is very little awareness about the disease, especially in its earlier stages. Also, India has very few female breast surgeons, which very often acts as a deterrent to the female patients in seeking medical/surgical interventions.

According to Dr Fukuma, this issue merits a lot of attention, as women need to seek medical intervention during the first stage of the disease. Surgery is ruled out completely in the third stage. He stressed upon the dire need of good quality and sustained breast screening programmes in India, in the same manner as polio eradication programmes.

In Japan, with 40,000 new cases added every year, one, out of every 20, Japanese women suffers from breast cancer. But government sponsored breast screening /awareness programmes done, with the help of MRI, under strict quality control are helping in early detection. Hence timely treatment of the disease is saving many lives.