MONTREAL -- At the launch of its 11th 'Memo-mamo' fundraising campaign on Saturday, the Canadian Cancer Society is paying special attention to poor, immigrant women who are vastly underrepresented among those who undergo a periodic breast cancer screening test.
People in their 50s and 60s are encouraged to have a mammogram every two years to quickly detect breast cancer, which is the most common and the second deadliest form of cancer among women.
However, more than one-third of Quebec women aged 50 to 69 do not participate in the Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program (PQDCS), whose letters are used as prescriptions to make free appointments for mammograms, without going through a doctor.
In Montreal, the ratio is one in two women, which prompted the Canadian Cancer Society to focus on the language barrier, lack of literacy and other barriers in its awareness messages.
The organization is now adapting its efforts to better reach women from ethnocultural communities and low socio-economic status, among others.
"These women will receive the letter from the screening program, but there is still a barrier to understanding the information. We want to try to get in touch with these communities in the future," said Véronique Gallant, Program Manager for the département de la prévention et de la promotion de la santé.
To this end, the Canadian Cancer Society will focus on lightened information materials, word-of-mouth and the creation of new partnerships to spread its message, says Gallant.
Persistent myths
In parallel with these more focused efforts, the Canadian Cancer Society still needs to address some of the fears surrounding mammograms.
Dominique Synnott, a surgeon in oncology and trauma at the Sacré-Coeur Hospital in Montreal, identified three main sources of reluctance.
"It sounds pretty odd, but the main fear of patients is having breast cancer. They play the ostrich," she noted.
However, breast cancer treatment is almost completely effective when it is started at stage 1.
The apprehension of a painful procedure is also widespread, but a mammogram only causes "discomfort that lasts a few seconds," said Dominique Synnott.
The third case is that of healthy women who believe they are safe from the disease.
"We do not know the causes of breast cancer, we only know the risk factors," said the surgeon.
Some 27,000 women, including 6,600 women in Quebec, are diagnosed with breast cancer each year.
"Eating healthy and staying active is not enough," insists Dominique Synnott.
Neither is a self-exam.
"You cannot feel a 4-millimetre lesion, that's impossible. Do not wait to feel something, see!" said Synnott.
As part of the `Memo-mamo' campaign, keyrings illustrating the size of the lesions detected with a mammogram compared to a self-examination will be sold until Jan. 10 for $5 at Jean Coutu pharmacies in Quebec.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 23, 2019.
