A new book looks back at Thailand’s leading breast cancer centre

“I want this centre to be a sanctuary for all women,” the Queen stated as she officially opened the QSCBC back in 2005. Two years later and to ensure that all Thai women suffering from this cancer, regardless of their income level and status in society, could receive the help they needed, the Centre’s chief physician, Dr Kris Chatamra, founded the non-profit organisation, the Queen Sirikit Centre for Breast Cancer Foundation, to support the work of the QNSCBC.

The challenges faced since the inauguration of the Centre, its work and its achievements are celebrated in this new, limited-edition coffee table book.

Put together by Dr Kris Chatamra and Khunying Finola Chatamra, who serves as honorary advisor to the Centre and the Foundation, “Sanctuary” details 15 years of the national QSCBC Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign.

This includes all the breast cancer ambassadors and valuable information about a disease that is the most common cancer diagnosed today and sadly still results in the death of many Thai women. The book also tells the story of the work of the QSCBC since its opening to the present day as one of the most modern regional centres open to all women in need, particularly the underprivileged. It also recounts the QSCBC Breast Cancer Screening Project in the poorest slum communities and the QSCBC Pink Park clinical unit, which cares for the poorest patients nationally during their recovery from breast cancer and acts as a hospice.

The book shares the story of the QSCBC’s remarkable success with immunotherapy, a new treatment which increases hope for those fighting cancer.

Dr Stuart Curbishley, PhD, Director of Advanced Therapies, Immunotherapy and Immunology Centre at the University of Birmingham, UK, who flew to Bangkok for the launch, said: “The QSCBC has developed a new treatment approach using immunotherapy, which destroys the cancer in the liver and lungs of patients who have reached the final stages of breast cancer, when all other treatments have finally failed. They also have the most modern equipment available for treatment and diagnosis and the most advanced laboratory facilities.

“This approach is amazing news for breast cancer patients. The work was presented at the St. Gallen International Breast Cancer Conference in Switzerland in 2021,” he added.

The project is now undergoing full research trials and is dependent, like all the Centre’s projects, on donations.

“Sanctuary” will not be sold but donated to embassies internationally and institutions in Thailand including universities and schools to bring a greater understanding of breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer found in women worldwide. It is newly diagnosed in more than 40,000 Thai women each year.