Photo: Courtesy of Ali Harrison of Light + Paper
In 2018, 47-year-old Adriana Ermter found a lump in her armpit. Her doctor referred her for a mammogram, but the clinic said it was likely just a calcification in her breast tissue. After months of requests for additional screening, the Toronto resident received a second mammogram, an ultrasound, an MRI and a biopsy. The biopsy confirmed the lump was cancer. ?If I hadn?t advocated for myself, under the guidelines I wouldn?t have had regular mammograms until I was 50,? Ermter says. ?Who knows what stage of breast cancer I would have progressed to"?
Although Ermter caught her cancer early enough, her story is familiar to Jennie Dale, executive director of Dense Breasts Canada, a non-profit that advocates for breast density awareness and better screening. She?s spoken with countless women who were diagnosed with later-stage cancer because they weren?t screened earlier. Mammograms can spot cancer two to three years before physical symptoms develop, but the guidelines for referrals vary between provinces?which is why Dense Breasts Canada just launched mybreastscreening.ca, a website that helps navigate those guidelines. Women who are 40 or older in British Columbia, P.E.I., Nova Scotia and the Yukon, for example, can refer themselves for a mammogram. But, in provinces that require physician referrals, patients might not know how to self-advocate if their doctor doesn?t recognize a need for screening. And only six provinces ...