Breast Cancer Foundation NZ
Treatment of rural and urban women
February 2009
Research Grant
What is the problem and who is affected?
Overseas research suggests that the treatment choices made by rural women diagnosed with breast cancer impacts on their long-term survival. For example, some rural women chose more extensive surgical therapies than urban women, and treatments such as radiation therapy were less likely to be chosen because of pragmatic challenges such as travel time.
What is this research hoping to achieve?
Associate Professor Dovey and her team aim to determine whether rural and urban women in Otago and Southland have different treatment for breast cancer and to establish the reasons rural women with breast cancer opt for the treatment choices they do.