Breast cancer in Brazil: medicine and public health in 20th century

Abstract

This study discusses the trajectory of breast cancer to becoming a major public health issue and constant topic of discussions in Brazilian society. We trace an extensive profile on the changes in approach concerning breast cancer in Brazil, considering the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies and the power struggles between the different groups involved in their implementation. We show that with new technologies major attention was directed to the prevention of breast cancer, which led to controversies on how it would be done. The analysis is framed as a qualitative study with a historical approach based on studies of medical history and the Social Sciences. The data were collected from medical sources (specialized journals, congress reports, medical thesis and books); institutional and legislative documents; magazines and newspapers; and a corpus of interviews made by the project “History of Cancer: Actors, Scenarios and Public Policies” (Fiocruz/INCA).