Your Health

An Army Of Women Signs Up To Defeat Breast Cancer

Posted: 11/12/2010

The Army of Women seeks to recruit 1 million women to participate in studies aimed at finding the cause of breast cancer and how to prevent it.

(NAPSI) - Eradicating breast cancer may take an army—an Army of Women.

Volunteers are signing up every day on www.armyofwomen.org with the goal of moving breast cancer beyond a cure and eradicating it once and for all.

Since its inception two years ago, more than 340,000 women (and a few good men) from across the globe have signed up for the Love/Avon Army of Women, a program of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, funded by a grant from the Avon Foundation for Women.

The Army of Women seeks to recruit 1 million women of all ages and ethnicities, with or without breast cancer, to sign up and participate in studies aimed at finding the cause of breast cancer and how to prevent it.

Eighty percent of the members have never had breast cancer but want to play an active role in being part of moving breast cancer beyond a cure.

Volunteers sign up on www.armyofwomen.org, providing basic contact information. Researchers contact the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation when they have breast cancer studies in need of women (and men).

All studies are reviewed by an external scientific advisory committee. If the committee believes it’s a valid study, an e-mail is sent to the entire Army of Women database.

Studies will require a variety of different things (women can be asked anything from filling out an online questionnaire to providing a blood sample). Women select which studies to take part in based on study criteria and personal preference. Participation in studies is not mandatory.

“Determining the cause of breast cancer is not just going to take more research, it’s going to take a different type of research,” said Dr. Susan Love, president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation. “Using animal models to understand breast cancer is not enough. We need more studies on real women in order to understand the cause of this disease. Our Army of Women is eager and willing to volunteer.”

Love, a renowned breast cancer surgeon and an expert in breast cancer and women’s health for the past 25 years, is the author of the best-selling “Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book,” now in its fifth edition. The new edition is timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Dr. Love believes it is important for the research community to shift its focus to the cause of breast cancer, because over 80 percent of women who get breast cancer have none of the known risk factors. This means researchers still don’t have any idea how to prevent breast cancer.

“It takes less than three minutes to go online and join the Army of Women,” said Dr. Love. “The Army of Women is going to change the way we approach breast cancer research forever.”

Note to Editors: While October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this information can be useful to your readers at any time of year.

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