SINTRA WILL be the setting for a walk against breast cancer on Saturday, October 1. Beginning at 9.30am in the square in front of the Centro Cultural Olga Cadaval, the walkers will proceed on to the Largo Rainha D. Amélia, alongside Palácio da Vila.
At the end of the walk, an initiative organised by cosmetics and toiletries brand, Avon, in partnership with Sintra Câmara, will be offering a mammography unit to the Instituto Português de Oncologia (IPO) do Porto, the Portuguese oncology institute in Porto.
Early diagnosis of breast cancer is extremely important and the unit will allow examinations to be made in a short space of time and with a reduction of 50 per cent in terms of x-ray exposure.
Avon has already offered a mammography unit to the IPO in Lisbon, which now boasts the first machine of this technological level to function in a public hospital.
At the end of the two kilometre walk, there will also be information in regard to pregnancy care as well as literature about breast cancer, a disease which affects a major part of the Portuguese population, particularly women.
Yes, men can also contract breast cancer – in every 100 cases of breast cancer, 99 women are affected while one sufferer is male. In 2001, 21 men in Portugal died of breast cancer (INE Estatística de Saúde 2001).
All participants in the walk will receive a bag and a T-shirt, with the group’s logo in pink, the colour typically associated with awareness campaigns for breast cancer.
It is hoped that hundreds of people will come and take part in this important walk.
