'NZ women must push for top breast cancer care'

By KATHERINE HOBY

A visiting American breast cancer specialist says New Zealand women need to be more proactive in order to get better treatment for their cancers.

Dr John Link is a leading oncologist and researcher and has established four breast cancer clinics in the United States.

He says American women are more confident, and pro-active when dealing with their cancer than women in this country.

Dr Link said researchers were "chipping away" in the battle to increase survival from breast cancer but that advanced treatments and drugs might not get to New Zealand women as fast as to those in the United States.

"The treatments are very expensive.

"Is there a chance you could miss out? I think so," he said.

Dr Link cited political and economic reasons as barriers to getting state-of-the-art drugs here.

"There is no reason why you shouldn't have the latest treatments here but you have to make yourselves heard.

"Surely the Government or philanthropy could help."

He said that the United States started pouring large amounts of money into breast cancer research 15 years ago.

Campaigners got their wish: that the cost of one prototype fighter jet, US$350 million ($800 million), be spent on research. To date, there has been about $3 billion ($6.8 billion) spent.

Dr Link said he was a great believer in getting a second opinion, something women do a lot in the United States.

"And I say this to New Zealand women: if you tell your doctor you want a second opinion and he seems upset or offended in any way, you should get yourself a new doctor."

He said the world was such a small place that "the real key is for New Zealand women to really push and get on international trials".

"The pharmaceutical industry is multinational and there's no reason women here shouldn't benefit from that."

New Zealand women getting involved in trials would have a number of benefits: women would get new treatments earlier, and oncologists could familiarise themselves with those treatments.

One problem seemed to be that doctors and specialists in this country were stretched and "trials take a huge amount of effort".

Dr Link said researchers were making progress in developing new drugs.

"There are a huge amount of products in the pipeline.

"And I think some very encouraging new serums will be upon us in the next two to three years."

He said breast cancer sufferers need not be afraid of entering trials for new drugs.

"The trials are much kinder these days.

"It's not the slash/burn/poison mentality any more. And each one presented and trialled is teaching us something and making a small impact."

With at least 50 major subtypes of breast cancer, he thought it unlikely there would ever be one cure found for the cancer.

But Dr Link said we should be encouraged to see survival rates going up.

This was partly due to screening mammography.

"We are at 70 per cent survival rate and we're working on 80."

nzherald.co.nz/health