Only 22.57% of the 141,613 women invited to participate in breast cancer screening in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region and in Alentejo underwent a mammogram in the first quarter of the year, reveal data released this Friday. .
Data from the Portuguese League Against Cancer (LPCC) delivered this Friday to the Portuguese agency reveal that, in this period, 31,968 women underwent the exam free, having been 75 cases detected Of cancer.
Between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2022, 611,124 women were invited to take the free test in the southern region of the country, excluding the Algarve, but only 204,339 (33.44%) attended, having detected 974 cases .
The population screening promoted by the Núcleo Regional do Sul of the LPCC entered the final phase of expansion for the Lisbon and Setúbal region last February, covering all municipalities that until 2021 had not yet benefited from screening.
The expansion covered some 92,300 women who have been examined since February 2021, it is expected to invite 400 thousand in all the municipalities of the southern region by the end of this year.
In statements to the Lusa agency, the person in charge of Breast Cancer Detection at the NRS, Marta Pojo, explained that the low participation (less than 20%) of women residing in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area is due to the lack of knowledge because until 2021 they were not included in the screening, giving as an example that in areas of Alentejo, where screening has been implemented for several years, adherence is around 80%.
“It is expected that, in a first phase, (…) these rates will be lower. However, in Lisbon they are frankly low [cerca de 16%]even compared to the Setúbal district, which has a slightly higher rate,” he lamented.
The official pointed out as explanations for this poor adherence “the ignorance of the advantages of participating in this screening”, the performance of the mammography in the field of primary health care or through a specialist.
“That information has yet to be determined because the goal is for women to be followed in some way. Now there are benefits to participating in population-based screening because it reduces false positives. It has much more precise results because it is always the same team that makes and looks at the mammograms and there is a whole history of these mammograms”, as well as being important to “create evidence”.
For this reason, she defended the importance of women being aware of the added value of doing so: “We have a very high breast cancer survival rate in Portugal and one of the factors behind these results is population screening. (…) If all women participate and thus detect breast cancers in a timely manner, these the results will be significantly better in terms of survival.
Based in Lisbon, Susana Sousa, 53, received a letter from the League to carry out the test in a mobile unit located near her home, which was not possible at that time.
Despite regularly having a mammogram prescribed by the gynecologist, Susana decided to get tested when she participated in an LPCC race in the Belém gardens.
“At that moment, specialized professionals explained to me that if there was any doubt they would contact me,” which happened shortly after due to a doubt that arose in the exam, which they wanted to analyze better, she said, confessing that at that moment she was apprehensive, but at the same time calm, because “the alert was quick.”
This was followed by a visit to the League in which she had a new mammogram and ultrasound and the specialists concluded that “everything was fine,” said Susana Sousa, stressing the importance of screening, which It is an “added value” offered by the League.
Marta Pojo explained that women can change the date that comes in the call, as well as the place where they will do the screening. There is still a “small percentage” where the addresses are incorrect and, in this case, users can go to a mobile unit even without the invitation letter intended for women between 50 and 59 years of age.
“Whenever possible, we call to find out the reasons why they are absent. However, with the number of missing women right now being so high, we don’t have the human resources to call everyone and understand the situation. What we achieve is to send messages to raise awareness about participating or remembering and many of them end up calling saying that they cannot or that they are going to another time ”, she concluded.
Source: Observadora
