Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the committee for allowing me to provide you a patient's perspective. I'm not going to take too long, because Dr. Ureten has already outlined things.
I am a breast cancer survivor with dense breast tissue. I had two instances when I actually had small areas on my right breast. One was a non-cancerous nodule and another one was DCIS, which is a sort of pre-cancerous stage. So I actually was someone who was very breast-aware and also did know that I had dense breasts. That was something that kind of came up in conversation. What I didn't know was anything about the risk factors, about what having dense breasts meant. This was a term like many other terms that are kind of thrown around when you have a diagnosis.
I was actually very religious with mammograms, as anyone who's been through this experience was, and in March 2007 was very relieved when my mammogram came back as clear. Then I felt a lump in my breast in August 2007, so four months later. An ultrasound at that point revealed that I had a fairly large tumour that was nestled between cysts and sort of sat in that dense breast tissue and obviously hadn't shown up on the mammogram.
Despite regular attention to my breast health, I was diagnosed with stage 3A breast cancer, locally advanced breast cancer. To quote my oncologist, the tumour was “a little bit larger than we'd have liked it to be”, and unfortunately it had also spread to my lymph nodes. As importantly—and as you've just heard—it was a very aggressive cancer. My next year was about a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, and 15 months of Herceptin. Without Herceptin, to be quite honest, I wouldn’t be here today, because the cancer was that aggressive.
I believe my tumour was there in March 2007. And though I can never know for sure, I believe it would have been smaller, it probably would have been contained, and my survival odds would be better. Had there been a protocol for women like me with dense breasts that included ultrasound as part of my routine follow-up, perhaps my journey would have been different. Even today, as a survivor with dense breast tissue, ultrasound is not part of my annual follow-up because it's not part of the generally accepted protocol. I believe that's very wrong.
I can only tell my story, but I have heard many similar stories from other women, as I facilitate a monthly peer support group in Burlington, Ontario.
We need to educate women and health care professionals about the increased risks faced by women with dense breast tissue. We need to provide better tools for monitoring those of us who are facing those risks. Breast density is a serious issue. As you have heard, it affects all women, regardless of race and colour. We know that we are in fact at higher risk of getting cancer and that the cancer will be more aggressive.
Please, I would ask the committee on behalf of all breast cancer survivors to support this bill and ensure that this information does get out at the provincial and territorial level.
Thank you for listening.