Kylie minogue, the famous pop star knowing or unknowingly has generated awareness about breast cancer. Her may breast cancer ordeal resulted in 40% increase in women vouching for mammogram bookings.
In the two weeks following the singer's announcement that she was to undergo surgery to have a lump removed, there were double the usual number of bookings from women aged 40-69 who had not previously been screened.
The study reported by the Australian Medical Association, has named this as the "Kylie effect". The report also states that this could be helpful to reduce breast cancer-related deaths.
Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney said, "Health advocates should develop anticipatory strategies for responding to news coverage of celebrity illness."
Gillian Batt, director of cancer information and support services for the NSW Cancer Council, said the impact of Minogue's ordeal was "quite incredible, particularly in the group that had never been screened before". "It reached people that the conventional methods of advertising and promotion hadn't reached," she said.
But she added that mammograms for women under 40 were not effective because of the composition of breast tissue. The 37-year-old singer discovered the lump herself.
Despite this, breast cancer screening is credited with lowering the number of deaths by 30per cent.
Mrs Batt said the research was encouraging because it showed there was not just an immediate spike in mammogram bookings. "Six weeks later those bookings were still up by a third," she said.
Professor Chapman said such publicity would usually require a huge campaign budget.
As per statistics more than 11,300 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Australia each year. About 25 per cent of those women are younger than 49.
Therefore the "kylie effect" can save lot of lives, what if it's a celebrity, it did pay!