Background:
In Yemen, breast cancer is a leading cancer. Nevertheless, the current efforts in approaching its burden appear to be patchy and fragmented due to the lack of a comprehensive national breast cancer control strategy (NBCCS).
Aim:
The present paper is aiming at describing the actions done to develop the NBCCS based on registry data and portraying the challenges for such strategy.
Methods:
Breast cancer data from the population based Aden Cancer Registry for the years 2002-2006 were used to estimate the needed resources regarding raising awareness, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care services. A qualitative participatory approach for the roles and responsibilities of the developing partners and the need for in the development process were critically analyzed.
Results:
The paper details the context through which the strategy could be developed starting from the purpose of providing a framework for an integrated, comprehensive set of activities covering all aspects related to breast cancer, passing through the characteristics of the NBCCS, the guiding principles and steps of development, the process of development and the possible related challenges. Finally, the need for NBCCS to guide the existing and future actions with a set of evidence–based, cost–effective priority actions while being sensitive and realistic to resource opportunities and constraints was highly focused
Conclusions:
NBCCS cannot be achieved by any single organization successfully and its development should be consortium–based. The necessary partnerships of many partners and their responsibilities were indicated within a comprehensive NBCCS.