Challenges and Recommendations for Dietary Management of Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients in Low-resource Settings

Abstract

Breast cancer ranks as the most prevalent cancers among women with around 2.3 million cases newly diagnosed in the world, including in Indonesia. Among many factors, lifestyle changes, delayed diagnosis, and limited access to healthcare services to be are the leading cause of increased diagnosis. The challenges for breast cancers do not end there, metastases could occur which leads to higher health burden. In low resource setting in particular, cancer nutrition management can be such a challenge due to lack of nutrition training on cancer nutrition among healthcare professionals, lack of confidence of family caregivers due to limited knowledge in cancer nutrition management, and absence of cancer nutrition management guideline. There needs to be evidence-based dietary recommendations to be implemented as part of public health policy related to cancer nutrition management. Such dietary recommendations would help alleviate health burden in breast cancer patients, decreasing potential risk of metastasis and other indicators of poor prognosis.