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Breast Cancer

by Cristina Tanase
September 2005

It was pure coincidence for Inga Tigai when, on her way to the J.W. Marriott Hotel for the launch of the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer (FTBC) campaign, the taxi driver told her, ‘You know, my wife was suffering from breast cancer too, and now she’s going through the recovery process.’

The launch of the FTBC campaign in Romania is not, however, a coincidence. Breast cancer is the second highest disease in Romania after cardiovascular disease and the most common type of cancer among women, with an occurrence rate of 57 out of every 100,000. About 60 per cent of women who contract breast cancer will succumb from it, according to the figures of the Romanian Cancer League. Some 6,500 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed annually.
These figures can be reduced by frequent medical tests that allow women to be diagnosed accurately and early. This was model Diana Dondoe’s message, when she became the face of FTBC Romania. This is the target of the message, the doctors tell us.

‘We say let’s get involved now while there is still time. If we cannot help the women who are already in an advanced stage, let’s smile, because we can still do it for countless other women who are prone to contract this disease,’ says Inga Tigai, the campaign’s coordinator.

The main target of the campaign is to make women more aware of the risk of breast cancer, to make them aware that they are at risk, she says. Alongside that is the sales of the t-shirts: a third of the funds raised will be donated to the Renasterea Foundation, a foundation headed by Mihaela Geoana, which has helped spread awareness about breast cancer.

The campaign started in the US in 1994, at the initiative of designer Ralph Lauren’s, who designed the t-shirts with the etched bullseye logo as a response to a request from a friend Nina Hyde, the former fashion editor of the Washington Post who died of breast cancer in 1990. He was moved to do something meaningful to attract attention to the disease. And he did. The campaign raised $2 million in 16 weeks from the sales of 400,000 t-shirts.

FTBC then extended to 13 countries; first the UK, then in Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Japan, enrolling the help of supermodels such as Gisele Bundchen, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Eva Herzigova, Kate Moss and Claudia Schiffer to promote the t-shirts. Diana Dondoe, who is promoting the campaign in Romania, is the former face of Emanuel Ungaro and Balenciaga and represented Chanel and Prada, amongst others.

“When we talk about selling a t-shirt, we mean selling it to a woman, but also to the woman as a mother. Actually, we also sell it for her children, for her husband, for her boyfriend, for everybody around her who could be affected by her disease, says Ms Tigai.

The 10,000 Romanian t-shirts are being produced in Greece, in Versace’s workshop. Mihaela Geoana, the president of the Renasterea Foundation, thought, however, of involving Romanian fashion designers in this project. “My own dream is to make a Romanian chapter of this international campaign. We already talked to Romanian designers who would be delighted to create their own original t-shirts,” she says. She thinks that the concept of charity has grown in Romania to be of help to the international campaign and to add to the press coverage that they have already.

The relationship between fashion and charity is of high importance for reaching the predominantly female target group, believes Ms Tigai. “Promoting the fashion idea has a double impact: on the one hand, the buyer wears a beautiful, fashionable item, which the person next to her can notice and stop to read its message; and then on the other hand, there is the buyer’s financial contribution.”

These financial contributions will make free mammograms possible to women without medical insurance or for women who have a monthly income of less than 100 euros, explains Ms Geoana. The money could also make possible the acquisition of a ‘mammogram on wheels’, which could go throughout the country every two years and, thus, help women everywhere get into the habit of routine examinations, Mihaela Geoana says.

Dr Gheorghe Peltecu, who heads the Filantropia Hospital, says annual exams are crucial. If the case is diagnosed at an early stage of the disease, the chances of a complete recovery exceed 80 per cent. “Not only does early diagnosis provide big recovery chances, but it also provides the possibility of some surgical treatments that help conserve the breast, and, thus help conserve the woman’s body image,” he explains.

According to the ENCR, a European cancer resource authority, breast cancer afflicts one in every eight women at some stage during their lifetime. Romania has a medium incidence rate of breast cancer. The highest rates are present in the industrialised countries like United States and Canada, he explains. In Europe, Western and Northern Europe have the highest incidence, averaging a risk of breast cancer that is 60 per cent greater than in Eastern Europe. The Netherlands has the highest incidence rate of any one country, according to 2000 figures, while Macedonia was the lowest. Romania came in as the seventh lowest after Macedonia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovakia.

Furthermore, for women under 30 the incidence of breast cancer is less than one per cent but the risk rises with the age, and becomes significantly higher after 50 – making regular mammograms for women over 50 a must.
The scale of the problem is enormous, says Mihaela Geoana. It is not only the lack of routine exams, but also the lack of understanding amongst women that needs to be addressed. ‘When we launched the free telephone line, some people called to ask us if the disease is contagious.’

Romania’s education system is partly to blame, she says. ‘Even if you can’t teach children what breast cancer is, you must create in them a better attitude towards their own health. How often have you heard Romanians saying, “Doamne fereste sa ajung la doctor”? They wait until they get ill before seeing a doctor. This mentality has to change,’ Geoana says.

It was this lack of information that eventually prompted Mariana Dumitru to become a volunteer of the Renasterea Medical Information Center (inside the Oncology Institute). As a survivor of breast cancer, she remembers having encountered the same lack of information as a patient.

She says she hoped women could become better informed, as it is easier for the patient to deal with an illness and treatment when she understands what is happening, and the reasons for it. She says she noticed how her personal example helped many patients who returned to the centre to say how wonderful it was meeting her.

There, women can find information on the warning signs of the disease at an early stage, and the diagnosed can benefit from a psychological support programme. Mariana Dumitru felt the absence of a psychologist was one of the worst things during her illness. ‘When one is diagnosed with something like this, it is extremely hard to get used to the idea, and then to understand what is happening to you,’ she says. ‘I talked about it with everyone I could, to the extent that my friends almost couldn’t take it any more. I managed to get over this with their help, and especially with God’s help.’

Ms Dumitru noticed that the number of women who come to the centre to ask for medical consultations or mammograms rise in October, the official month of the fight against breast cancer. Most of them, however, are women who have some sort of preexisting problem, while very few come just for a routine exam.

The explanation for this could be a certain attitude that people tend to build when it comes to their own health. ‘It might be that “Oh, it couldn’t possibly happen to me” thing. The bad part about cancer is that it is a cunning disease. It only starts to cause pain in the final stages,’ the volunteer says.
Mariana Dumitru was diagnosed with bony metastasis last year. She says she does not know when that moment will come: it could be in one or five years or maybe later. She simply knows it can’t be now, as she wishes to raise her eight-year-old daughter.

Meanwhile, she has managed to finish building a house on the outskirts of Bucharest. ‘This seems to be a rather contradictory plan compared to my diagnosis. But I can hardly wait to eat fruits out of my garden, which I will arrange next year. And I will invite you to the inauguration,’ Mariana Dumitru says and laughs candidly, while her eyes glitter at the imagined joy of the juicy fruits.

 

The volunteer of the Renasterea Medical Information Centre was made Avantaje magazine’s Woman of the Year in 2004.