Breast cancer screening of transgender individuals

34^th International Nurse Education & Nurse Specialist Conference

November 08-09, 2017 | New Orleans, USA

Deirdre Kiely

NYU Langone Medical Center, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Adv Practice Nurs

Abstract :

Gender identity is an alignment of an individual�s biologic sex and the deeply felt sense of being male or female. When there is incongruence in these aspects of an individual a transgender orientation exists. Gender identification is a grey area in society requiring health care providers to understand and adapt to changing societal norms. The transgender community is a growing population that continues to be integrated into society. Underutilization of cancer screening has been found especially to affect socially disadvantaged groups like the transgender community. This presents an opportunity for the medical community to address their specific healthcare needs in a comprehensive and affirmative manner. The initial step will be to create a healthcare environment that is sensitive and inclusive to their unique issues and to acknowledge their barriers in seeking healthcare services. A shared global database that collects and organizes patient data would serve as the foundation for practice standards to guide clinical decision making and recommendations for breast cancer screening. A reliable breast cancer risk assessment is multivariate including modifiable and non-modifiable factors. A review of the literature was done using key phrases including transgender, breast cancer incidence and screening. A limited body of research reported data on breast cancer screening, incidence and outcomes. Much of the available research was found to be descriptive and focused on barriers in accessing healthcare services rather than how to provide care. Our purpose is to summarize breast cancer risk assessment and screening recommendations for transgender individuals based on the literature review.