other countries who pay for their healthcare often do procedures more frequently or at an earlier age… eg annual smears and annual mammos from age 40 for all women in the US regardless of risk
jeanie i think better gp education is definitely a good idea… especially in relation to younger women where they often dont follow things up or pursue it because they almost believe nobody under 50 gets it… when we know that even women in their late teens and 20s do although that is very rare.
Lxx
Hi Lulu34
I couldn’t agree more with your comments re younger women. Younger women need to have much better recognition. GPs should be referring women of all ages who have symptoms which could possibly be breast cancer. I don’t think my GPs even recognised my symptoms due to how little experience they had with regards to breast cancer. I feel education and training need to be a priority. My GP also said breast cancer was rare in women under age 50. Is this something else they have to be educated in? I would hardly say over 8,000 per year and rising is rare. I know I have had to deal with the problem of being four years misdiagnosed but I cannot help but feel for younger women who have young children, are full-time working Mums, still paying a mortgage and still wanting to have an active sex life. Not to mention the financial worry. It’s a tough call.
Jeannie
Hello
I too agree that there is a need for better GP training in relation to younger women - even if numbers are smaller the result is devastating. I’m not saying its not hideous for older women, but it’s particularly cruel to see young lives and young families so affected and all for the sake of training and understanding of the issue.
monica xx
the numbers arent even that small really as at age 40 you have around a 1 in 200 chance of having BC… i think thats quite high and even at 30 its less than 1 in 2000… if you think about how many women of that age there is in the UK it really wouldnt be considered ‘rare’ perhaps less common but definitely not rare.
i think that if you are over 50 and go they may sometimes take your symptoms more seriously than younger women who are often told its to do with their cycle etc
but i think if docs referred every case for further investigations then some of those who do seriously need to be seen would be bumped down the waiting list due to people who do actually have nothing wrong with them.
Lulu x
AnneG
Just because your tumour didn’t show up on mammogram 18 months earlier it does not mean that you were clear. Mammograms at best detect 80% of abnormalities, AT BEST.
For women who are BRCA mutation carriers the effectiveness can be below 25% …
By the way, if you want a mammogram every year then ask for it, demand it of necessary but don’t rely on it because they are not 100% reliable - obviously. They are also more harmful than x-rays, see B Ehrenreich’s writing on this.
I had annual mammogram due to family history. I had no symptoms at all but at the age of 44 mammo picked up an abnormality which turned out to be a 3cm grade 2 tumour. Even the cons couldn’t find the lump and needed u/s for the fine needle aspiration. I am eternally grateful for mammo as goodness knows how long it would have been before the tumour gave me symptoms.
Nicky
When i found a lump in my armpit aged 46 it was found that I had 5.5cm of DCIS, and 2 cm which had become invasive. No breast lump. If i had been screened and the DCIS found i probably would not have had to have gone through all the chemo, rads hercptin and a recurrence. Bring it on for younder women!
I would love to know how many women are diagnosed following their first routine mammogram. I was despite having no symptoms and I have heard of many women who were the same. I was found to have multifocal tumours and now have secondaries. If I’d been 6 weeks older, my mammogram would have been a year later and may well have saved my life.
Kelley
Hello Kelley,
I was diagnosed following my first routine mammogram. I had no idea so it was a bit of a shock. I had the mammogram and then went on holiday and came home to the recall letter.
Eliza xx
mine was picked up on my first screening mammogram. I’d asked for a mammo and ovarian screening when my mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007. ‘No’ said my bad tempered female GP, we don’t screen under 50, and we don’t offer ovarian screening. DCIS may have shown at that stage but I like to think that nothing else would have done. I’ve now been referred for ovarian screening too.
river
Interesting; I have a family history and was refused as well - it wouldn’t happen now, hopefully …
I had my ovaries removed because of the link with BC and OC in the fmaily and not really needing them for anything - except earrings maybe!
Have you read NICE guidelines? You may well have “qualified” for MRI when refused. Just a thought.
Others - actually not that many women are dx as a result of mammograms relatively speaking. That are many false negatives too of course. False pasitives can be coped with but false negatives are a bit different.
There has been interesting debate (rather heated actually from some quarters) on BC Pals about this report if you are interested in reading more.
I am in agreement with Jeannie about GPs having more training and needing to be more aware. I saw 3 GPs at my practice. The first was after my diagnosis when I needed a medical certificate, he just sat there and said he was the wrong person to be talking to as he knew nothing about BC whilst I sat shaking. The second was the GP I saw every time I needed another medical certificate; he thought when I was on Herceptin it was a one a day tablet, yet at the time of my diagnosis it was never out of the news due to women going to court to get access to it. The same GP refused to give my Oncologist permission to refer me for counselling, according to him I didn’t need a clinical psychologist and as I’d had most of the treatment I should “just try to get on with things”. My oncologist ignored him and referred as she was so angry with his attitude (she also told me they often have problems with GPs).
The third is the woman GP in my practice, who also happens to be the wife of the second one (my own feeling is it’s a conflict of interest for both to be in the same surgery). At the last appointment I had with her for a gynae problem it was quite obvious she wasn’t clued up on BC, yet she claims to be a specialist in all female diseases, also the menopause. She wanted to prescribe something which I said I had been advised against using by the oncologists and she just gave me a blank look accompanied by “oh, did your oncologist really tell you that?”. You couldn’t make it up as they say.
My Mum died of breast cancer 22 days after my 50th birthday and I had my first routinue mamogram 6 days after that - I felt I owed it to her go ahead with it. All clear, roll forward 3 years to April 2009 mamogram lump found but by the way they now think that there was a dot on my first mammogram which is now that lump. Had lumpectomy and the results were 2.5mm tumor grade 3 ER+ 4, Progesterone strongly receptive, HER2 negative and one sentinal node out of 2 micro metastes overall NPI 5.5. Treatment 4 Fec 3 Tax (shouild have been 4 but I was so ill), firther op to clean up margins and to remove lymph nodes later this month then radiotherapy and amiridex.
But if they had investigated the dot in 2006 I might nt have needed all the treatment I have now had/having.
Dahlia
With hindsight, I’d have had a mammogram privately - we’ve got private cover with my husbands job - but with all the stress at the time of my Mum’s surgery and chemo, I didn’t get round to it. My Mum in law had lymphoma in the stomach at the same time so we had both of them going through chemo!
Now of course I know I was right to ask for it, not knowing the links between ovarian and breast cancer at the time. It was a gut feeling. Such a shame my GP at the time wasn’t clued up. B***h. She’s not there anymore.
I’m interested that you’ve had oopherectomy - have you seen the Ovary removal thread?
River