Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Clinical Oncologist, Muhimbili National Hospital
Conquer Cancer – The ASCO Foundation
Understanding drivers of survival disparity among women living with HIV and breast cancer to improve care delivery and reduce mortality.
Breast cancer (BC) is a leading cause of cancer related deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa. For women living with HIV, the risk of death from breast cancer is 65 percent greater than HIV negative women. Both HIV and breast cancer require navigating through separate long-term therapies. These therapies are associated with treatment related toxicities with the potential for poor treatment adherence, which can contribute to the reported disparity in survival. Dr. Nyagabona’s Conquer Cancer research, supported by BCRF, aims to explore the experiences of women living with both HIV and breast cancer to understand the drivers of the disparity in breast cancer survival and inform the development of a user-friendly integrated care model to improve outcomes for these patients.
Dr. Nyagabona’s team will develop and conduct interviews with participants recruited at two national cancer treatment hospitals in Tanzania. They will conduct unstructured, open-ended interviews with HIV-positive women with breast cancer and healthcare providers. The healthcare providers group will be composed of HIV clinicians and oncologists and nurses. Recruitment will continue until data saturation is reached.
Results from the study will inform the development of a user-friendly integrated care model that links HIV and cancer management to improve care delivery and reduce mortality in women living with HIV who have been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Sarah Kutika Nyagabona, MD, MMed is a clinical oncologist, who provides care to cancer patients at Muhimbili National Hospital. Her vision and mission are in interventions that aim to reduce disparities in breast cancer survival in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Nyagabona earned her medical degree at Hubert Kairuki Memorial University and received a master’s degree in clinical Oncology from Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS). Dr. Nyagabona is an adjunct lecturer at MUHAS in the department of Clinical Oncology and is currently pursuing a PhD at MUHAS. In the summer of 2022, she joined University of California San Francisco (UCSF) as a research scholar to hone her skills in clinical research. Dr. Nyagabona’s research interests cut across the breast cancer care continuum, from screening, diagnosis, clinical management and outcomes to patient navigation and survivorship. Dr. Nyagabona is an active member of the Tanzania Oncology Society, the Medical Women Association of Tanzania, ASCO, AACR and AORTIC.
2023
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