A B.C. woman has launched a petition to make the disclosure of breast density mandatory after she was diagnosed with stage three 3 cancer.
Elizabeth Astbury, 46, says she began getting regular mammograms in 2010.
“I got letters back saying everything’s OK,” Astbury told CTV News.
That’s why she was surprised when she discovered an eight-centimetre lump in her breast last April.
“I was shocked, devastated,” she said.
What she didn’t know at the time is that dense breast tissue, which has relatively less fat, can interfere with mammogram accuracy.
“In women between the ages of 40 and 49, mammograms can miss cancers because those are women who are more likely to have dense breasts,” said Astbury.
That’s why there’s been a growing push across the United States for the disclosure of breast density.
Breast cancer survivor Nancy Cappello is the founder of the U.S.-based “Are you dense” advocacy group, which helped push for the passage of legislation across 14 states requiring radiologists to disclose patients’ breast density.
“It is about informed consent,” she told CTV News. “How can we make an informed decision about something we have no information about?”
In Canada, however, similar legislation has been sitting before the Senate for two years.
While physicians argue that disclosure of breast density could lead to unnecessary tests and fear, others say mammography is still useful in women with dense breasts.
“In my view, at the very least, if a woman knows she has dense breast tissue, maybe it would encourage her to pay more attention to her breast self-examination,” Dr. Paula Gordon told CTV News.
Meanwhile, Astbury is pushing for B.C. to provide women with access to the information she didn’t have.
“If I am successful with this petition, I hope to see there become a formal requirement in British Columbia that following a screening mammogram, a woman is informed if she has dense breasts,” she writes on her website.
With files from CTV News’ Melanie Nagy and CTV Vancouver’s Mi-Jung Lee
