One out of eight women would have breast cancer at some point in life, according to an international study. Therefore, the sooner the disease is detected, the greater the chance for successful treatment. However, the situation in terms of prevention and early diagnosis in Bulgaria is not looking good. It turns out that just 12% of Bulgarian women with breast cancer were diagnosed in the initial stage of the disease. In Europe, this percentage is 27. Therefore, the breast cancer diagnosis in this country sounds almost like a verdict. This is what motivated the head of the Department of General Surgery of the "Lozenets" University Hospital, Dr. Vania Mitova, to create the first Bulgarian online application designed for both healthy people and breast cancer patients.

"The BreastHelp application is the first in Bulgaria, which unites the efforts of many people and it is related to prevention, screening and follow-up of already diagnosed breast cancer patients. Keeping in mind the fact that most women are not even informed about the risks of this disease, we decided to make this mobile application. It is free, it can be installed on any kind of electronic device, regardless of whether it is a tablet, phone, computer, etc.", this is how Dr. Vanya Mitova explained the necessity of creating the application on the air of BNR-Blagoevgrad.

• 25% of women with cancer in Bulgaria suffer from breast cancer

Every year, about 4,000 Bulgarian women are diagnosed with breast cancer, but it is assumed that the number of women with this disease exceeds 30,000.

"Fighting against this disease on a daily basis, I can say that we have seen cases when the cancer has reached the final stage of development before the patient even received medical attention. At the same time, we all know that prevention in Bulgaria is not something that is a priority in general - neither for the population, nor for the state and those in power, so the only thing left for us is to look for all possible alternative ways to encourage people to take more care of their health," Dr. Vania Mitova says.

Usually, the patient has access to an oncology commission in a relevant medical institution. But the idea of BreastHelp is to also provide patients with online access to a multidisciplinary team that would look into their case individually and make a unanimous decision which type of treatment would be most appropriate. The members of the online commission are leading experts in the field of oncology, radiotherapy and nuclear medicine. "All over the world, patients consult such multidisciplinary commissions before the start of their treatment, but this does not happen in our country," Dr. Vania Mitova says and adds:

"In Bulgaria, in 95% of the cases, preoperative consultations with oncology commissions are not carried out. In nearly 70% of hospitals, the decisions are the result of discussions between two people – the oncologist, who works in the respective medical institution as a consultant, and the attending physician, who presents the clinical case. Often, oncology commissions in non-specialized oncology hospitals consist of just a small number of specialists. As a result of all this, the patient practically goes through a perfunctory consultation with oncology commission," Dr. Vania Mitova says.

Within two days, through the BreastHelp app, the patient receives the opinion of the online commission. Once again, telemedicine proves its advantages as waiting in front of the offices of various specialists and reserving an appointment for an examination months in advance can be fatal because of the development of the disease.

See also:

• Focus on solutions, not on the problem, Diana Guneva tells breast cancer patients

• From Love to Life - Campaign that brings hope

Compiled by: Veneta Nikolova /based on an interview by Vanya Bahchivanova from BNR-Blagoevgrad/

English: Al. Markov

Photos: breasthelp.me, lozenetz-hospital.bg