Worlds first Menopause & Cancer Awareness Day
A Surrey expert spoke to us on the effects that menopause caused by cancer treatment can impact someone's life
Today marks the first World Menopause and Cancer Awareness day. It aims to raise awareness about menopause caused by cancer treatment and how much it can impact someone's life.
New research has been done with 1,280 cancer survivors talking about their experience with the menopause.
These women say that a menopause following treatment can arrive overnight, hit harder and last longer than the natural transition, and affect people in their 20s and 30s as well as midlife.
Other findings in this research were:
- More than nine in ten received no plan to manage menopause-related changes after treatment
- Only one per cent recall clear guidance
- Three in four say they had little or no information about the impact on hormones or fertility
- Ninety-five per cent felt their clinical teams lacked up-to-date knowledge
- Ninety-nine per cent believe better support is urgently needed.
- Many participants say symptoms of treatment-induced menopause were worse than the cancer treatment itself.
Dr Carys Sonnenberg, who is a NHS GP and a menopause expert, says that there is plenty of work that needs to be done to improve the situation.
"So they want menopause support to be built into cancer care so that pre-cancer treatment, discussions happen and that long-term cancer care planning include the symptoms that may occur accordingly.
We also need better training for healthcare professionals. We need we have some very good comprehensive guidelines now that have been produced to help us with certain types of cancer.
But we all need to know about these and we all need to be very confident and well educated in speaking to women who have had complex cancers in order to be able to support them better."
Dr Sonnenberg says that World Menopause and Cancer Awareness day today (September 18) provides a real opportunity to stimulate conversation about the topic
"Over today, it might be that somebody shares their story and there's a woman listening who is going through exactly the same type of situation. Yet she didn't know that her symptoms were due to menopause or she didn't know that she could go for support. "
Sonnenberg added that she was optimistic looking forward about the topic getting more exposure
"I am really optimistic and I'm really grateful to be part of this. We now need to promote it so that it's widespread and women know that if this happen to them, as it will happen to many, many, then they know that they're not on their own."