Only 15% of women in Canada reported getting breast cancer screening last year: study

When Toronto resident Alicia Bryan found a lump in her right breast in the summer of 2020, she expected it to disappear on its own.

At 34, Brian was an active and healthy person, and she didn’t immediately book an appointment for a breast cancer screening.

Brian said, “It was visible, so it was very hard to ignore. And it was painful. But I thought if I ignored it, it would go away.”

Brian said he ignored the lump for months. Finally, in April 2021, she went to her family doctor, who said she needed a mammogram and a biopsy. Through that biopsy, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at St. Michael’s Hospital and had a lumpectomy two weeks later.

Now, after undergoing eight rounds of chemotherapy, 24 sessions of radiation, a genetic test, a mastectomy and reconstruction, she is cancer-free and has become an advocate for breast cancer screening.

“If it’s detected early, there’s a better chance it can be treated. And it’s really when you wait and find out in the later stages that there are fewer options,” Bryan said.

Brianna works with The Olive Branch of Hope, an organization that supports black women with breast cancer, and says she’s meeting more and more young women with breast cancer.

“I really think it’s important that young women are protecting their health and that we’re going out and getting the checks that are available to us.”

Study finds participation in screening remains low

Only 1 in 15 women in Canada reported getting screened for breast or cervical cancer in the last year, according to a new study from the Hologic Global Women’s Health Index. In the US, 25 percent of women report getting screened for these cancers.

Hologic, the US-based medical technology company behind the index, created the index with polling firm Gallup and says it is “one of the largest collections of data on women’s health and well-being.”

The study also found that women who have low income, who are members of an ethnic minority, or who are newcomers are the least likely to be tested overall.

A year ago, Ontario lowered the age for mammogram self-referral to 10 years. This means women over 40 can book a mammogram without needing a doctor’s referral. With one in nine women in Ontario being diagnosed with breast cancer, the age was lowered to enable doctors to detect the disease earlier and improve access to treatment.

“We know that early detection and increased access to treatment and care saves lives,” Health Minister Sylvia Jones said last October.

But according to Ontario Health, only 21 per cent of eligible women between the ages of 40 and 49 have gotten screened since the change.

Dr. Supriya Kulkarni, a breast imaging radiologist in the University Health Network’s joint department of medical imaging, said more than 1,000 mammograms were performed last year at Women’s College Hospital.

But there are some communities that are not being reached, he said.

“We have immigrant populations, we have refugees, we have people with language barriers, and then we have First Nations. There are so many different subgroups that are not yet reaching our systems, and it’s very important that we reach out to them,” he said.

“And especially with young people, they’re more engaged with young families and the pressures, economic pressures and access is also an issue.”

Kulkarni said efforts need to be made to reach certain groups and he’s hopeful Ontario’s new guidelines mean young people will be tested sooner.

“It should be a way of life that women come for screening once in two years.”

Ontario Health says it’s trying to encourage screening

Dr. Ritika Goyal, a family physician in Toronto, said people who are socially marginalized have less access to health care, and that includes breast cancer screenings.

“There’s a lot of research that shows that racialized women or immigrant women have lower screening rates for cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer,” Goyal said.

“There’s a lot of data that shows that in general, people who are immigrants and racialized, they have worse health access, they have worse health outcomes. And so it speaks to the social and structural determinants of health more broadly.”

For its part, Ontario Health said in a statement that it has created multilingual breast cancer screening materials and hosted webinars to raise awareness of the expansion.

To support underserved populations, Ontario Health said it has developed preventive care programs with prevention experts who have facilitated more than 7,000 culturally responsive breast screening conversations with racialized and disadvantaged communities.

With the latest innovations making screening easier and more comfortable, the hope is that more women will be reached, and more lives saved.