Japanese women must bring about radical change in their country's health-care culture to stem a worrisome increase in breast cancer, a prominent cancer-awareness advocate said ahead of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.
According to the National Cancer Center in Tokyo, about one woman in 26 is diagnosed with breast cancer -- an incidence rate that has grown markedly in recent years to make it the most common form of cancer for women here.
In 2003, the most-recent year for which data are available, nearly 10,000 women died of the illness, the center said.