A study using data from the Canadian Cancer Registry examined data from 55,490 Canadian women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2010 and 2017. I was.
Before I turn 50 A new study by researchers at the University of Ottawa found a lower rate of advanced-stage breast cancer diagnoses once annual screening for breast cancer began.
The study was co-led by Gene Seeley, Ph.D., Chief of Breast Imaging at Ottawa Hospital and Professor at the University of Ottawa School of Medicine, and Anna Wilkinson, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the hospital. This is what I did. The uOttawa medical school and family oncologist, Dr., has been published in the latest issue of Current Oncology.
Wilkinson called it the first Canadian study to show that screening policies for women aged 40 to 49 had an impact on women aged 50 to 59.
"Women in their 40s who don't get screened have late-stage breast cancer in their 50s," she said.
This finding is relevant to the province of Ontario, where routine annual breast cancer screenings by phone or other prompts begin at age 50. She said sometimes doctors don't refer patients because they don't know they can get tested before they're 50. In other cases, patients have their family doctor for referral. not or do not have access to a family doctor. This has gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Seely said she was "aggressively asking" the Ontario government to include women over the age of 40 in its regular annual breast cancer screening program. Told.
"It would save lives."
When breast cancer is diagnosed at a later stage, women usually require more intensive treatment and have a poorer prognosis.
}This study reviewed data from 55,490 Canadian women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2010 and 2017 using the Canadian Cancer Registry data archived with Statistics Canada. did. Higher rates of stage 1 breast cancer diagnoses and lower rates of stage 2, 3, and 4 diagnoses were found compared with states and territories that did not initiate routine screening using reminders.
Seely described it as a stage shift towards more advanced cancer at diagnosis.
"This makes sense," she said. "Women were losing their lives in these states." The five-year survival rate for breast cancer diagnosed at stage 4 was 25%, she said.
In 2011, Canadian breast cancer screening guidelines were changed to no longer recommend annual screening starting at age 40.
Seely and others have long argued that the change was based on research — the Canadian National Breast Screening Study — that was flawed. This study has long been considered the gold standard and has influenced breast screening guidelines in Canada and around the world for decades.
Now more guidelines are calling for screening at age 40, she said. This includes the recently updated National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines, which recommend annual mammogram screening for average-risk women beginning at age 40.
Seely warns that the pandemic is significantly increasing the rate of advanced breast cancer seen in Ontario due to the suspension and backlog of breast cancer screening.
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