Story by Carrie Hedderwick
I am talking to Dr Lou Millington who has worked at Pitsmoor Surgery for the last seven years. Our topic is Breast Screening Awareness. Screening women to check for breast cancer is very important, but unfortunately, here in Burngreave, not enough of us women are picking up on it. As I am write on International Women’s Day – 8th March – I think we should definitely focus on medical advances that benefit women.
Dr Millington told me how the surgery ran a Breast Screening Awareness session yesterday, where women were invited in to find out what the screening programme is all about. Women asked a range of questions – where do we have to go, who is most likely to develop breast cancer, what happens at the screening test, why do we test women if they are not experiencing any health problems?
These are some of the answers and statistics:
- About 1 in 8 women in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. If it’s detected early, treatment is more successful and there’s a good chance of recovery
- Screening aims to find breast cancers early. It uses an X-ray test called a mammogram that can spot cancers when they’re too small to see or feel
- The likelihood of getting breast cancer increases with age. All women registered with a GP, and aged from 50 to their 71st birthday, are automatically invited for screening every three years. • Talk to staff at the surgery or to someone you feel comfortable with to help you think about the test
- Staff can arrange a visit to your local breast screening unit before the test
- The screening only takes a few minutes, and the whole appointment about 30 minutes
There is a lot of good information on several websites – we recommend:
- www.nhs.uk/conditions/breast-cancer-screening/
- www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/breast-cancer/screening/breast-screening
There are lot of women GPs, nurses and health care assistants at Pitsmoor Surgery – which makes discussing specific women’s health issues that much easier.
