Client: Professor Dorothy Keefe CEO at Cancer Australia
Bio:
Cancer Australia is a cancer control agency under the Government of Australia founded to raise cancer awareness and support those affected. Cancer Australia developed the Australian Cancer Plan which aims to improve these outcomes for all impacted Australians, particularly achieving equity in cancer outcomes.
Additional health promotion against breast cancer and screening opportunities should be aimed at women aged 45 to 63 years and White women. These demographics have higher breast cancer diagnoses, hence have a higher risk of developing breast cancer.
Age
It is commonly known that women tend to develop breast cancer around 60 years old, however, the vagueness increases risk of unknowingly developing breast cancer which negatively impacts communities (Breast Cancer Network Australia, 2024).
library(tidyverse)
library(plotly)
cancer<- read.csv("breast_cancer.csv")
grade<-as.factor(cancer$Grade)
race<-as.factor(cancer$Race)
ggplotly(ggplot(cancer, aes(x=Age))+geom_bar() + labs(x="Age", y= "Number of Cancer Diagnoses", title="Figure 1. Number of Cancer Diagnoses across Age groups")+theme_minimal())In Figure 1, age and the number of diagnoses generally increase proportionally, where there is a large spike in the number of diagnoses between the ages of 46 to 63 before the number significantly decreases again. This supports the idea that cancer risk increases with age and due to cancer cells requiring longer periods of time to cause build-ups and develop into malignant tumours (Cancer Research UK, 2019). Hence women should be made more aware of the signs and symptoms of breast cancer and informed on how to prevent it before 46 years of age. Likewise, additional promotion should be focused on women until 63 years old as there is a decrease in the number of diagnoses after that age.
Race
ggplotly(ggplot(cancer, aes(x=race, fill=race)) + geom_bar()+labs(x="Race", y= "Number of Cancer Diagnoses", title="Figure 2. Number of Cancer diagnoses by Race")+theme_minimal())Figure 2 shows that White women have a much greater diagnosis of breast cancer compared to Black and women of other races. This aligns with recent SEER data and White women have a higher risk of developing breast cancer (Susan G. Komen, 2022). The other two races have a much lower number, thus there should be more promotion towards White women.
Health promotion is essential as early detection allows earlier treatment before it spreads and grows over the body. Grade of cancer describes the aggressiveness of the tumour, (National Cancer Institute, 2022).
ggplotly(ggplot(cancer, aes(x=Grade, y=Survival.Months, fill=Grade))+geom_boxplot()+labs(x="Grade of Cancer", y= "Number of Months of Survival", title="Figure 3. Number of Cancer diagnoses by Race")+theme_minimal())Figure 3 shows that the lower the grade of cancer, the better the prognosis of the patient. As the grade increases, the mean number of survival months decreases. The grade of cancer can worsen over time and determines the prognosis and treatment of the patient (Tumour Grade,2022). Hence, cancer should be detected as early as possible.
Limitations
This data was collected from women in the US 2017 SEER Program of the NCI. From 2017 onwards, only 36.7% of the US population was registered in this program, so there are less women than that proportion participating. Such a small portion of the population, can have varying ratios of ages and races. This can lead to under-representation of certain demographics leading to underestimated numbers of cancer diagnoses.
The Shared Value of Professionalism and Ethical Principle of Pursuing Objectivity have been adhered to as the data is respected by being clearly depicted and analysed objectively to serve society, which impartially supports the recommendation given.
No AI was used in the generation of this report.
External Sources
Breast Cancer Network Australia. (2024, September 9). Breast statistics cancer in Australia. Bcna.org.au. https://www.bcna.org.au/resources/about-breast-cancer/breast-statistics-cancer-in-australia/
Cancer Research UK. (2019, March 4). Age and Cancer. Cancer Research UK. https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/age-and-cancer
International Statistical Institute. (2023). Declaration on Professional Ethics | ISI. Isi-Web.org. https://isi-web.org/declaration-professional-ethics
National Cancer Institute. (2022, August 1). Tumor Grade - NCI. Www.cancer.gov. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/diagnosis-staging/diagnosis/tumor-grade
Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER) - Healthy People 2030 | odphp.health.gov. (2017). Health.gov. https://odphp.health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/data-sources-and-methods/data-sources/surveillance-epidemiology-and-end-results-program-seer
Susan G. Komen. (2022, July 21). Race, Ethnicity, and Breast Cancer. Susan G. Komen®. https://www.komen.org/breast-cancer/risk-factor/race-ethnicity/