There is an exciting change in the air. It’s just a breeze, but a breeze of possibility, blowing in the right direction!
A whiff of possibility is currently wafting - that BreastScreen Australia will finally sit up and take notice of the evidence to invite women to screen for breast cancer from the age of 45.
Currently the invitation age is 50. Women are invited to screen every two years around their 50th birthday – yet women in Australia are eligible to begin FREE mammography from the day they turn 40. Ten years is a long time, right?
In the epilogue of my memoir ‘Show Us Your Tits – Baring All and Beating Breast Cancer’, I dig deep into the evidence that supports lowering the initiation age to 45. This may seem like a small change to implement, but the government would need to invest more money in the BreastScreen service, screening thousands more women across the country every year, creating more access to appointments. This is why the evidence to lower the invitation age is so important. The cost benefit needs to be there.
And it is most definitely there. Not just in Australian data, but world-wide affirmation and substantiation for younger women to attend regular screening for breast cancer.
There is robust evidence that screening women from 45 saves lives. The mortality benefit is very clear. I won’t go into statistics here in this blog, but from the research I have delved into over the past 6 years, plus conversations with experts in the field, women 45-49 are being sacrificed for the dollar.
Currently this age group is at a BIG risk. There is a huge black hole in the program and women 45-49 are falling in at alarming rates, some never to claw and heave themselves out – diagnosed too late, because they didn’t know their eligibility for a life-saving mammogram began some 5+ years earlier. BreastScreen needs to fill in this hole - NOW!!
I’ve always thought that the way this decade of age eligibility (40-49) is handled by BreastScreen was so flippin’ weird! It is such a grey and fuzzy area. So completely confusing for women. Messages about whether or not to attend screening on various BreastScreen websites vary from ‘yes you are eligible – come along’ to ‘Mmm, you are eligible, but don’t bother. We don’t really want you to turn up.’ The latter message is basically because it costs BreastScreen money when a women 40-49 attends screening. Although this age group is eligible (and has been for over 30 years!) the government only funds screens from ages 50 through 74 – hence the ‘invitation’ or ‘target’ age range.
Each state and territory have a very different way of handling (or not handling) this demographic. BreastScreen Australia extends no guidelines or rules, so each state takes a different approach. The extremes can be best highlighted when we see WA including women 40-49 in all of their advertising – informing and raising awareness, whilst NSW and ACT NEVER EVER include this demographic, excluding women 40+ and deterring them from attending a process that could save their life.
This is just not good enough. Being informed and included should not come down to which state you live in. It’s deplorable really.
If we turn our attention to GPs across the country, it is appalling to witness the number of medical professionals who themselves, are unaware that mammography is FREE from 40. Through running the ‘Can at 40. Do at 45’ Facebook campaign for almost 6 years and speaking to many other BC warriors, it is hard to fathom how this lack of basic information (don’t forget it is 30 years old) evades a significant contingent of our doctors. Today I received a new story from BC warrior Amanda, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 45. She states:
‘You can imagine my surprise when a close friend let me know she went to her doctor after I asked all my friends to get checked, and her doctor told her she isn’t eligible until she is 50!’
This is what I am talking about!
I was diagnosed with breast cancer via a routine mammogram at 46. You can see my tumour here in the images.
Attending this routine screen on October 17 2017, saved my life!
This was my 4th screening mammogram, since finding out at 40 (just by Goggling ‘women’s health 40s Australia’) that mammograms were now FREE.
How lucky I was to find this! How much self-gratitude I have for my own proactive personality – actively searching for preventative health screens AND taking action by booking myself in – returning every two years.
This tumour was 3cm and had invaded my breast tissue. It had also grown 2 other ‘mini me’ tumours of 1cm – one behind it and one right behind my nipple (not detected by mammography). All of this happened, unbeknown to me, since my last screen at 44 – where I was given the all-clear. Even after being diagnosed, and knowing exactly where the tumour was, I could not feel any sort of lump or change. Breast cancer is a very sneaky bitch!
So back to the rousing winds of change…
Late in 2023, BreastScreen Australia requested public responses for their review. BreastScreen have not had a review like this for over 10 years. I’ve had A LOT to say. I sent in a 5-page letter with supporting evidence, 300+ stories from women across the country and a copy of my memoir – with attention directed to read the epilogue.
It is time the government made these important changes and invested in women 40-49 to not only improve the number of diagnoses, but avert more deaths from breast cancer, via early detection.
Fingers-crossed, that our passionate voices will be heard!
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