The mission of Américas Amigas is to promote, in the national territory, activities for the decrease of breast cancer mortality, benefiting mainly the population in socially vulnerable situations, through early detection and diagnosis of the disease. Our activities are based on three main programs:
Donation of Equipment and Supplies;
Capacity Building and Training for Professionals;
Donation of Detection and Diagnostic Tests.
The Awareness and Information campaigns about the disease permeate our pillars of action in all the actions we carry out from north to south of Brazil.
We know that the more women are informed about breast cancer and the importance of early detection and diagnosis of the disease, the more lives will be saved.
Initiated in 2009, the Equipment and Supplies Donation Program aims to help public and philanthropic hospitals implant or improve existing mammography services. of the 23 mammography devices donated, 20 are installed in fixed units from north to south of the country and 3 are installed in mobile units, including the mobile unit at Patrocínio Cancer Hospital - Dr. José Figueiredo and the mammography devices on the Dr. Montenegro and Pará Auxiliary Ship, which provide access to mammography to the riverside populations of Amazonas and Pará.
Besides mammography devices, the program has also benefited health services in 13 states with the donation of image digitizers (CRs), stereotaxis table, dry printer, vacuum biopsy kits and systems, peripherals, Core biopsy and mammotomy needles, mammography films, among other inputs. The number of mammograms already performed in the donated mammography devices is 850 thousand at the moment but this number increases every day as the exams are performed continuously.
Implemented in 2012, the Capacity Building and Training Program aims to contribute to the remodeling of the profile of the teams that work in the area of breast cancer and has already provided more than 35,000 hours of courses to professionals from public and philanthropic institutions. With content designed to improve and develop skills aimed at the detection and diagnosis of the disease, the training courses benefit professionals from all over Brazil, whose course fees, airfare, ground transportation, accommodation, meals, and travel insurance are paid in full by Américas Amigas. Besides the improvement of technicians focused on improving the technical quality of mammography, the program also offers training for radiologists and mastologists, medical physicists, mammography service managers and Primary Care professionals, among which are doctors, nurses and community health agents.
Created in 2015, the Exams Donation Program aims to promote access to early detection and diagnosis of breast cancer for women in situations of social vulnerability. The donated exams, which include mammography, ultrasound, MRI, biopsy (Core, PAAF and mammotomy), anatomopathological analysis and immunohistochemical analysis are performed in partner hospitals and clinics or during the "Women Friends" campaigns, actions in which the exams are performed in a mobile unit (van) taken to regions with repressed demand or difficulty of access to these exams.
These three main programs are permeated by campaigns that take place throughout the year and promote information about breast cancer and the importance of mammography, a test that helps the disease to be diagnosed still in early stages, when the chances of cure can reach 95%.