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Speaker 1: We know that the Breast screen Bus Millie as she's

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Speaker 1: affectionately known, is on the move screening women in Darwin

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Speaker 1: before heading to remote and regional towns. Now the screening

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Speaker 1: bus is going to be parked outside of Parliament House

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Speaker 1: from this week until so this week, i should say

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Speaker 1: until Friday, which is International Women's Day, as we know. Now,

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Speaker 1: joining us on the line to tell us more is

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Speaker 1: Breastscreen NTI's clinical director, doctor Lauren Arnold. Good morning to you, Lauren,

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Speaker 1: Good morning, lovely to have you on the show. Now,

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Speaker 1: why is it so important for women to make sure

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Speaker 1: that they have those mammograms.

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Speaker 2: So what we're aiming to do is to pick breast

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Speaker 2: cancer up before a woman knows it's there. So so

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Speaker 2: often we hear from women, I haven't had my mammogram

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Speaker 2: because everything feels fine to me. I can't feel any

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Speaker 2: lumps or I don't have any problems. But really you

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Speaker 2: can't et the size that we are trying to pick

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Speaker 2: up an early breastcan so it can't be felt or

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Speaker 2: noticed in any way. So a screening mammogram is a

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Speaker 2: really low dose X ray that allows us to have

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Speaker 2: a look at what's going on inside the breast tissue

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Speaker 2: where a woman can't feel, And our aim is to

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Speaker 2: pick up breast cancers when they're less than a centimeter

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Speaker 2: and that way, really we have to offer the best

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Speaker 2: chance for women to have successful treatment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, like how important is

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Speaker 1: it really to try and you know, to try and

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Speaker 1: pick it up when it is still that small, It.

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Speaker 2: Really makes an enormous difference. So what has really changed

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Speaker 2: over the last sort of fifteen years is that whilst

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Speaker 2: all cancer rates and particularly breast cancer rates are continuing

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Speaker 2: to rise, the treatment has just become so much better.

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Speaker 2: So you know, most women who are diagnosed with breast

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Speaker 2: cancer will not die from their breast cancer. They'll be

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Speaker 2: successfully treated and go on to live long lives. And

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Speaker 2: that's what our aim is. And we know that the

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Speaker 2: larger a cancer is and the further it's spread when

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Speaker 2: it's detected, the less easier it is to treat. So

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Speaker 2: we're really aiming to pick these up before a woman

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Speaker 2: knows that anything is going on and we can have

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Speaker 2: them treated and back out there doing the things that

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Speaker 2: they like to do and not having lots of ongoing treatment.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Arnold tell us in terms of eligibility, who is

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Speaker 1: eligible to come along to the breastscreen bus.

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Speaker 2: So anybody who has a Medicare card who is over

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Speaker 2: the age of forty can come and have a mammogram.

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Speaker 2: We often focus on the fifties and over because that's

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Speaker 2: where most of the breast cancer is diagnosed, is over

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Speaker 2: the age of fifty, but certainly anybody from forty onwards

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Speaker 2: is welcome to come and have a mammogram. When a

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Speaker 2: woman has her first mamogram, we will assess her risks.

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Speaker 2: So some people in the community are eligible for mammograms

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Speaker 2: every year, but we'll sort that out and figure out

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Speaker 2: who they are. You don't need a GP referral. You

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Speaker 2: don't need your GP to figure that out. All you

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Speaker 2: need to do is to be a woman and over

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Speaker 2: forty with a Medicare card who doesn't have any current symptoms.

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Speaker 2: So if you've got a current lump that you're worried about,

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Speaker 2: you really need to see your GP in the first instance.

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Speaker 2: But if there's nothing going on with your breast, we'd

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Speaker 2: really love everyone to come and see us once every

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Speaker 2: two years.

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Speaker 1: I'm really pleased to hear that because I always thought

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Speaker 1: the recommendation was when you're over fifty but I lost

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Speaker 1: my beautiful friend Campbell Giles was her name, when she

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Speaker 1: was forty one years old to breast cancer. And I

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Speaker 1: think it's really important that young women are aware that

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Speaker 1: we can be impacted from quite a young age.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's right. And of course everything's

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Speaker 2: a continuum, so breast cancer under the age of forty happens,

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Speaker 2: but it's incredibly rare, and for us to be doing

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Speaker 2: mammograms and all women under forty, we'd potentially be doing

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Speaker 2: more harm than good. And of course the balance shifts

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Speaker 2: as women get older, so between forty and fifty there

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Speaker 2: are still far fewer breast cancers than over the age

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Speaker 2: of fifty. But obviously you know, as women get older,

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Speaker 2: all cancers increase in frequency, and so anybody over the

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Speaker 2: age of forty, for those women aged forty to fifty,

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Speaker 2: they just need to know that mammograms are not quite

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Speaker 2: as sensitive as in the older women. So what happens

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Speaker 2: as you get older is your breath becomes fattier, not

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Speaker 2: necessarily bigger, but the inside composition of the breast tissue changes,

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Speaker 2: and women under the age of fifty tend to have

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Speaker 2: quite dense breast tissues. So although they're absolutely eligible for

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Speaker 2: a mammogram, and mammograms will pick up most cancers in

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Speaker 2: the under fifties. There's just that, you know, it's they're

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Speaker 2: just a little bit trickier to look at, a little

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Speaker 2: bit harder to interpret, and a slightly higher chance that

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Speaker 2: something will get missed. But again, we let women know

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Speaker 2: all those things when they come for their mammograms, and

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Speaker 2: once we have somebody on our books, we will then

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Speaker 2: remind them at those appropriate inivals, so they'll get a

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Speaker 2: letter in the mail from us at present, although we're

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Speaker 2: trying to change that to text and emails. If we

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Speaker 2: find women don't look in their postboxes as they used to.

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Speaker 1: We've always got those phones ready to go. Now tell

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Speaker 1: me in terms of, you know, the screening that happened

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Speaker 1: last year, for example, how successful is it in terms

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Speaker 1: of really helping territory women to pick up any of

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Speaker 1: those early cancer detections.

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Speaker 2: So we did six thousand screens in the territory last year. Wow,

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Speaker 2: it sounds like a lot, But unfortunately the territory has

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Speaker 2: the lowest uptake rate of breast screen across the whole

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Speaker 2: of Australia. Is that right, jo It averages out that

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Speaker 2: in women in that age group that we are targeting.

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Speaker 2: Across Australia, the average is about a fifty percent uptake,

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Speaker 2: and then some of those remaining fifty percent are probably

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Speaker 2: having mammograns organized by their GPS or through the private

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Speaker 2: system for whatever reason. But in the territory it's only

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Speaker 2: about thirty five percent, and we're really working hard to

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Speaker 2: try and increase that. We're working with GPS so that

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Speaker 2: they're reminding their women who are in the right age

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Speaker 2: group to come and have mammograms. We've got the capacity,

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Speaker 2: so today merely are breast screen buses at Parliament, which

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Speaker 2: is where we always kick off our truck program. She

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Speaker 2: does Parliament in the City first