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More women in region seeking mammograms

Women in northern B.C. are less likely to seek out breast cancer screening than women in the rest of the province but the tide is beginning to turn, according to Dr. Christine Wilson, medical director of the provincial mammogram screening program.

Women in northern B.C. are less likely to seek out breast cancer screening than women in the rest of the province but the tide is beginning to turn, according to Dr. Christine Wilson, medical director of the provincial mammogram screening program.

About 48 per cent of eligible women in Northern Health's region took part in screening in 2012, compared with 54 per cent in Vancouver Coastal Health, however the figure was higher in the central interior with a 53 per cent participation rate. Wilson said more women in the north are getting screened than in the past.

The issue of who should seek out screening and when became muddied two years ago when the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health released guidelines saying women between the ages of 50 and 69 without a history of breast cancer in their families should only get screened once every two to three years.

In response, the provincial screening agency is looking to create an online tool to help women decide whether or not screening is appropriate for them and when they should have the test performed. The latest edition of the B.C. Medical Association Journal also gives advice to physicians on how to approach conversations about the appropriateness of mammograms with their patients.

"One of our major themes is to have as many women who are eligible participate in screening, because the whole idea is to find cancer early when it is more easily treatable," Wilson said. "We also have to pay attention that there are women and doctors that are concerned about screening, we can't just be coercive, women have to make informed decisions."

In the coming year, the provincial screening program plans to launch an education campaign about the benefits of mammograms.

The provincial screening program is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Since its launch in 1988, there have been 4.5 million mammograms conducted in B.C., which have detected 19,600 cases of cancer, many in the early stages.

Northern B.C. is served by both permanent screening locations, as well as a mobile unit that heads out to rural and remote communities.

"We've really been concentrating on getting to some of the hard-to-reach communities, particularly some of the First Nations communities," Wilson said, noting outreach efforts in other parts of the province have targeted certain ethnic groups. "We've actually seen a modest increase in participation in the First Nation, Asian and Southeast Asian communities."

The province is in the process of upgrading the mobile units from analog machines to digital. The mobile unit that serves Vancouver Island will be replaced this year and those serving the north and the interior are slated to get new machines in the coming years.

Wilson said once the upgrades are in place service will improve because woman who get screened will receive their results back much quicker. Using the current analog technology, the hard copies of the images must first be shipped via courier from the site where the images are taken to Vancouver for processing and once processed they can be analyzed. The digital images will be able to be transmitted electronically from the screening site to the analyst.

"That will make life much easier," Wilson said.