Knowledge gained after a brief CME module on breast cancer diagnosis

Background. In developing countries, continuing medical education (CME) is lacking and physicians' knowledge of cancer control may also be lacking. Method. We evaluated knowledge of 144 primary care physicians in Egypt and 50 in Tunisia regarding breast cancer (BC) and inflammatory BC (IBC) in particular. We invited the physicians to pretesting, presentation of an educational module, and posttesting. Results. We found significant improvement in knowledge about risk factors for IBC and BC, importance of early detection and clinical examination, and referral of IBC cases. The variables that were independently associated with improved BC knowledge, were rural practice location, being a female physician, and greater numbers of BC patients seen in the last year. Conclusion. We developed and evaluated a CME module to improve BC diagnostic knowledge of primary care physicians in developing countries. The evaluation showed that physicians most lacking in this knowledge had the greatest gains. With the anticipated adoption of this module in Egypt and Tunisia, we expect to see more appropriate referrals to cancer centers. These results could guide future oncology CME for physicians in developing countries.