PURPOSE: The study tried to identify and to analyze the opportunities of early detection of breast cancer available for the women of Botucatu County. METHODS: A sample of 261 women, 30 year-old or more was interviewed by telephone. RESULTS: The age average was of 51 years; 49.45% of them studied at least 9 year; 80% received general orientations about breast cancer prevention and 86,9% specific orientations on self breast exam; 78.9% of the interviewers made the self breast exam, but only 27% made it correctly. The physician breast examination was made in 76.2% of the women and mammography in 35.6%; if physicians requested mammography exam and if it was available for all of them, 83.1% of the women would like to do it. CONCLUSION: The breast cancer prevalence and the mortality are higher in old women. This study showed that these women presented a smaller rate of opportunities for early detection, because they were less informed about the right periodicity of the self breast exam and they had less mammography and physician breast examination frequency than the younger. The school degree was also related, because the women with more years of study had better opportunities than the ones with less years of study.
Breast cancer; Early detection; Physician breast examination; Mammography; self-breast exam
