Siobhan Freeney, Founder of Lobular Ireland, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Yesterday a question was raised in Houses of the Oireachtas at The Health Committee on behalf of Lobular Ireland and our campaign for Mandatory Breast Density Reporting for Women who have Mammograms in Ireland. Thank you to Donna Mc Gettigan for your support.
The Head of National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) responded but we feel he completely missed the point.
Risteard O’Laoide’s response talked about several aspects including equality. There is currently no equality in terms of Breast Cancer Screening for the 43% of Women who have Dense Breasts in Ireland. These Women are not told when their Mammograms indicate that they have Dense Breasts.
Risteard also mentioned Clinical assessment, but Women who have Dense Breasts are not routinely referred for a Clinical assessment or essential, additional Imaging. By the time many of our Lobular Women ever got in front of a Clinician their Breast Cancer was sizeable and had already spread to their nodes.
Many of our Lobular Women tell us they never missed a Mammogram, how devastating it is to be told after the fact (after diagnosis) that your Mammograms were not effective and that Radiologists missed or did not see the Tumor on your Breast Cancer Screening Mammogram images, but this is what’s happening.
Risteard O’ Laoide quite rightly referred to the importance of Research.
There’s no shortage of research to support Mandatory Breast Density Reporting.
For Women who have Dense Breasts, Breast Cancer Screening by Mammogram alone is Incomplete. Up to 50% of Breast Cancers are missed annually on Mammograms in Dense Breasts.
Lobular Breast Cancer is the 2nd most common subtype of Breast Cancer with up to 400 cases discovered each year in Ireland. Numbers of Lobular Breast Cancer Diagnoses are growing year on year. Lobular is now more common that Ovarian Cancer – it is the 6th most common Cancer in Women.
Lobular is frequently missed on Mammograms, in fact Mammograms alone are only 11% reliable in detecting Lobular Breast Cancer in Dense Breasts.
We’re calling on HIQA – Health Information and Quality Authority to include Patient representation from Lobular Breast Cancer Ireland on their Expert Advisory Group as they assess our two Public Submissions made to the National Screening Advisory Committee in 2022 and 2023 as they carry out a full Health Technology Assessment, which will look at Breast Density Reporting in an Irish context.
We’ve been campaigning for Standardised Breast Density Reporting for Women in Ireland since 2019.
Mairin Ryan
We’re seeking Cross-party support for our Campaign and calling on Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD to mandate for Standardised Breast Density Reporting for Women who have Mammograms in Ireland.
We’re very grateful to all of the TD’S and Senators who are supporting us on this crucial Women’s Health Breast Cancer Screening issue.
Please add your name to our Petition and ask your friends and family to do so as well.”
Proceed to the video attached to the post.
More posts featuring Siobhan Freeney on OncoDaily.