Do I still have time?
Evidence of meeting #24 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #24 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
How often do you think that Canadian women get tested for this?
9:30 a.m.
Founder and President, VIP Breast Imaging
Are you asking how often they get tested, or how often they should be tested?
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Why don't you answer both: how often do they get tested, and how often should they be tested?
9:30 a.m.
Founder and President, VIP Breast Imaging
Okay.
For a mammogram, the recommendation is for women over the age of 40. In some provinces, the recommendation is for women over 50.
For an ultrasound, there is no limit; it's for any age. If a woman is high-risk, she can have this test at any age, but for screening purposes, I think it should start after the age of 40. As for the frequency of having an ultrasound, I would recommend annual testing, but I can show you some papers from Europe that recommend having an ultrasound every six months, especially for a high-risk woman.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I just want to congratulate Mr. Brown. As you know, I support your bill, and what I'm pleased with in your bill is the fact that you didn't create a panic, in terms of having women everywhere begin to worry very much about screening, etc. I think that's very important.
There is one thing, however, that I would like to see in the bill—I am going to put this in as an amendment—and that is to add that the federal government should form a clearing house for best practices. As we see, in some provinces there are different approaches; British Columbia, for instance, has the best record in terms of breast cancer outcomes in Canada. If we can create a clearing house of best practices, it would allow provinces to look at the clearing house and see the best ways to deal with this.
As they say, the jury is out on whether or not more screening does, in fact, help, and we know there are no international standards that say that having MRIs all the time will help, so we want to make sure that we find the fine line in that balance. I think that looking at best practices and having that clearing house in the federal government is a really important thing that we can do to improve on this bill. I think that it's a good bill; it's a start and it has some very important points in it.
Do you have a comment on that?
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
Thank you, Hedy, for your support, and thank you to your colleague, Carolyn Bennett, for her comments in the House on this. I appreciate the support.
In terms of a clearing house, I think that is the role the federal government can play in terms of identifying best practices. Maybe the vehicle to do that is the Canadian breast cancer screening initiative. I know that one of their mandates is to create a Canadian breast cancer screening database that would see non-governmental organizations and provincial and territorial screening programs contribute to a national database, which would be used to monitor and evaluate breast cancer screening programs. Hopefully, this bill could put that focus on the dense-breast-tissue patients, about whom there is a lack of information.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
The only thing that I want to be careful about—I stress this with the NDP amendments too—is that if it's viewed as changing the scope of the bill after the second reading, that would make it non-receivable in the House, and the last thing that I want to see is something that would kill it in its tracks.
Obviously, the clerk's opinion and the department's opinion on this are very important. We don't want to see the work on this lost.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Thank you very much, Chair. It's good to be back with all of you. I missed the special meeting last week, so it's the first time that I'm seeing the committee again.
I was pleased last night to see Feather's name on the witness list. I know you have connections to British Columbia, particularly to Chilliwack.
You started to share your story, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to continue, if you're willing, to share with the committee about your personal journey, as well as about your advocacy work and about how you came to be involved with VIP Breast Imaging.
9:35 a.m.
Representative, VIP Breast Imaging
Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Feather Janz, as I said before. I was first diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 23. I detected a lump in my breast when I was 20 years old and had gone for numerous tests, including an ultrasound, that did not detect what was occurring in my breasts due to a highly dense breast situation that I was not aware of.
The three lesions grew in my breast. At the time I was scheduled for surgery and was convinced it was not cancer, the largest mass in my breast was five centimetres in diameter. I went in for surgery and then was told, at the age of 23, that I in fact had highly aggressive grade three breast cancer that quite likely could threaten my life. I underwent a radical mastectomy and thankfully didn't need any subsequent treatment at that time, and I would remain cancer free for many years.
I felt very passionate about really changing the face of breast cancer in our country. Being a 23-year-old athletic young woman, I was not expecting to fall into this diagnosis.
Twelve years later, I had continued on with my life. I got married and had a couple of beautiful daughters. When they were turning two and four years old, I wasn't feeling especially well. I had chosen to maintain my right breast because I really believed that because I had had breast cancer, all of our medical procedures and testing would catch it in time for me. I really believed that. I had been going for tests for four years and telling them that I didn't feel my breast felt normal, but I did not have another breast to compare it to.
I went to mammography continually--every six months to twelve months--and nothing was detected until I started to not feel well. I actually went to have a prophylactic mastectomy because I was quite convinced that something wasn't right; a doctor convinced me to go for a mammogram and an ultrasound prior to that. I have my reports sitting in front of me, which highlighted in my mammogram “high dense breast tissue, too dense, quite dense, not able to see any abnormalities” and an ultrasound stating quite similar things as well, unfortunately. Then my pathology report from my mastectomy one month and three days later stated that it was an advanced, aggressive disease that had already spread to my lymph nodes.
Thankfully, the surgery and the subsequent six months of aggressive chemotherapy, two months of maximum radiation therapy, and another year of Herceptin treatment did what they needed to do. That robbed my family of a lot of precious mommy time, but I'm here today, a 40-year-old healthy woman, and in every way I feel stronger.
But I was shocked when I found out in October that probably the base reason for this happening in my life was this extremely highly dense breast tissue. I had never been informed. I had never been told, and I had been working for an advocate and working with Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, travelling around the country speaking and raising awareness. I knew that young dense breast tissue didn't work as well in mammography, but I was not informed of my increased high risk of being five to six times more likely to get another breast cancer because of that. I had no idea. I was a highly informed, trained woman with the B.C. Cancer Agency who was teaching workshops on breast health, and even I didn't know that.
So something needs to change. I implore you to help make that happen for women like me. We represent only a small portion of a lot of women who are affected in this way.
Thank you.
9:40 a.m.
Founder and President, VIP Breast Imaging
These survivors are not financially connected to our organization. I work with them on a volunteer basis. I met Feather and asked her to help us educate women. That's why she's here today.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Given that some women have gone through mammography and ultrasound, am I to understand that the technology you use might have detected this earlier, that it's even more specific? It's more able to see through that dense breast tissue to detect those cancer cells early...?
9:40 a.m.
Founder and President, VIP Breast Imaging
Thank you for that question. It's a good point.
Feather had a hand-held ultrasound. As I mentioned, that kind of ultrasound really depends on the skills and the experience of the operator, and there's no human being who can take 300 images with every millimetre of the breast. That's what automated breast ultrasound does. We see some patients who have had their ultrasound done in regular medical facilities, and when they come for an automated breast ultrasound, we diagnose lesions. That's the difference between two tests.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Am I to understand that you have one of these machines?
