Early breast cancer care vital

[Anchor]

Ongoing conflict between the government and the medical community has led to delays in treatment and surgery for many cancer patients.

However, research has shown that if surgery for early-stage breast cancer is delayed, the mortality rate can increase by more than double.

Medical reporter Park Kwang-sik reports.

[Report]

This woman in her 70s was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer last April.

A well-known university hospital required a wait of over seven months, so she ultimately had surgery at a nearby general hospital after just one month.

[Lim Myung-ho/Early-stage breast cancer patient: "At the university hospital, the surgery date is in December, so I can't wait that long. I mean, it's cancer; it grows, doesn't it just sit still?"]

A joint research team from Seoul National University Hospital analyzed 60,000 early-stage breast cancer patients from stage 0 to stage 2 between 2008 and 2015, finding that if the first surgery took more than 60 days after diagnosis, the mortality rate was more than double five years later.

As surgery is delayed, cancer cells can spread rapidly.

[Kim Sung-won/Breast surgery specialist: "Cancer cells grow every day, and when it becomes a month, two months, or three months, it gives those cancer cells time to enter our bloodstream..."]

Due to the ongoing conflict between the government and the medical community that has lasted for a year and five months, it has been shown that one in two cancer patients experienced surgery delays of more than a month.

[Lee Ja-ho/Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Seoul National University Hospital: "Recognizing that getting surgery quickly within the right time frame is much more beneficial, it may be more advantageous to receive standardized treatment at a nearby hospital..."]

In South Korea, more than 30,000 new cases of breast cancer are reported each year.

Experts recommend that "prompt treatment" is crucial for survival, advising that treatment should begin within a month after a breast cancer diagnosis.

This is KBS News, Park Kwang-sik reporting.