For Deepti Saraf, general manager of Swiss healthcare company Roche in Malaysia and part of the APAC Women’s Cancer Coalition, it’s high time we normalise conversations about women’s health to reduce the impact of women's cancers in Asia Pacific
Women in Asia are diagnosed with breast and cervical cancer at a disproportionately higher rate than the global average. Asia currently accounts for 45 percent of global breast cancer cases and 58 percent of all global cervical cancer deaths. The consequences of this are severe, affecting not only individual women, but also society more broadly.
A recent report commissioned by the APAC Women’s Cancer Coalition examined the increasing burden of women’s cancer in six countries in Asia Pacific, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and highlighted the dire need for greater understanding of the patient journey and the challenges women face so as to better address and improve health, social and economic outcomes.
Deepti Saraf is general manager of Roche in Malaysia, a Swiss healthcare company which supported the report and is a founding member of the APAC Women’s Cancer Coalition. Saraf shares more about her personal experience with cervical cancer, the findings of the recent report and what can be done to tackle women’s cancers, in her own words.
Women’s healthcare is not just a healthcare issue—it also has a huge societal impact
I’ve been working in the healthcare industry for 20 years in roles across India, Thailand, and Malaysia, where I am now based. When I reflect on the stark statistics, it is clear that countless women in Asia Pacific are succumbing to breast and cervical cancers, ailments that can be prevented or treated more effectively with early diagnosis. Shockingly, around 50 percent of all breast and cervical cancer cases occur in Asia, and unfortunately, treatment outcomes are not as optimistic as those in advanced markets. For example, in the US, almost 90 percent of women with breast cancer survive, but in Malaysia, 40 percent of women with breast cancer are dying, many at a young age. As a woman, these statistics are not acceptable to me.
My mother’s experience with cervical cancer brought to the forefront the challenges of the patient journey, how truly difficult it can be, and how much work we have left to do to champion women’s health
In 2020 in the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic, my mother started experiencing some worrying symptoms. But like many women unfortunately do, she ignored them. When we finally realised that the symptoms were serious, it took us six or seven hospitals, multiple doctors, and six months to get her diagnosis right. Sadly, we found out that she was suffering from cancer.
Luckily for us, it was still in its early stages and my mother got some of the best surgeries and treatments possible. But during the entire journey, the navigation was very difficult, for both my mother and our family. She continues to live with side effects and even though she got the best treatment, it was not the best outcome for her. She would have really appreciated some support groups to discuss her journey with and early insights into what to expect would have significantly helped her. And although I work in the pharmaceutical industry and there were things I could do to make things easier and help her, I could see that it was still very difficult for her. When you experience things like this, it makes you want to take charge and drive change and it has certainly made me more determined to do my part to help women like my mother.