Saskatchewan women ages 43 and older can now sign up for mammogram screening without a doctor’s referral as part of a phased approach to get the eligibility age down to 40 by June.
Articles and posts about the age qualification drop were spread on social media as soon as the province announced it the first week of January, but a large chunk of the comments were filled with misinformation about the safety of mammograms.
This response shocked advocates and physicians who have been pushing for the qualification age to drop to 40 for years.
“I was appalled and I immediately, you know, copied the link to the Facebook post and shared it with some of our advocates and some of our physicians to show them because we’ve never seen anything like that — that magnitude of the misinformation,” said Jennie Dale, founder and president of Dense Breasts Canada.
Dale said one post on Facebook that simply shared a screenshot of an article about the age drop to 43 had over 400 comments. She said the majority of them contained misinformation about mammograms.
“And I thought, Oh my goodness, it would take hours, if not days and days, to put forth a dedicated effort to dispel this information. It was overwhelming. It was all different types of misinformation all in one spot,” Dale said.
This misinformation included claims that mammograms expose women to high levels of radiation, that mammograms are more painful than experts say they are, and that “false negative” and “false positive” results are high, which leads to extreme anxiety and stress in women.
Dr. Paula Gordon, a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia and a practicing breast radiologist, said it’s important to let women know these claims are either false, or misleading. She emphasized that online misinformation can deter women from taking advantage of the age drop due to fear.
“After age 40, the radiation in a mammogram is negligible in terms of risk. People need to know that we’re surrounded by radiation every day, that we get radiation from the air, the water and the ground,” Gordon said.
She said the dosage of radiation in a mammogram is very, very low. For example, if a woman lives at sea level, the risk of a mammogram is the equivalent radiation that one would get simply from living for seven weeks.
Radiation, Gordon said, is higher if you live at an elevation. At a high elevation, the radiation risk of a mammogram is equivalent to simply living in that environment for three weeks.
Lisa Vick, a breast cancer survivor and patient advocate, said that prior to finding a lump on her breast, she was concerned about exposing herself to more radiation through a mammogram. But that changed.
“I thought I was a healthy 48-year-old woman. I wouldn’t need a mammogram yet because I had no family history. I was, you know, taking care of myself. And I’m like, why would I expose myself to extra radiation?” said Vick, adding that she did not know how low the risk actually was.
“And I just thought there’s no need. I’ll just wait, hang out. Besides, I thought that was something that women over 50 did.”
But when she looks back now, two years later, Vick said she wishes she would have had the opportunity to be screened a lot earlier.
“I would have learned about my breast density and the risks associated with having denser tissue,” said Vick.
A standard mammogram screening often can’t detect cancer if the breast tissue is dense because it appears white, just like cancer. If that is the case, a follow-up ultrasound is needed.
Dale said the uptake of mammogram screening for women under 50 is low in many parts of Canada.
“And so we’re definitely concerned that women are hearing that mammograms can cause harm and they’re painful and the radiation is going to have an impact and all the different types of misinformation out there,” she said.
Dale said it’s enough that women face mammogram screening with some trepidation because it’s a test that can lead some to finding out they may have cancer. There’s a lot of anxiety surrounding the test to begin with. But when women also see misinformation online, it adds confusion.
In a statement to CBC, the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency (SCA) said its screening program, BreastCheck, which is provided through a partnership with the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), has completed fewer than 1,000 mammogram appointments with clients 50 and younger since January 2025.
Dense Breasts Canada said it cannot assess how low the mammogram uptake numbers in Saskatchewan are at this time. Still, she reiterated that uptake across Canada has been consistently low among women under the age of 50.
The SCA said screening mammograms do not require any sort of signup process. Instead, eligible women with current Saskatchewan health cards can phone BreastCheck to schedule a screening mammogram at any location convenient to them.
“As for screening mammogram wait times, the majority of our screening sites are booking within four weeks, with the exception of our Regina screening site, which has appointments available within four months,” said the SCA.
Women can book at any of the screening sites across the province, including the Mobile Mammography Unit.
However, Vick – who is a founder and organizer for WeyStrong, a group that aims to provide support to women in the Weyburn community who have been diagnosed with cancer – said women of all ages tell her waitlists are long or inconsistent.
“One woman says, ‘I got an appointment in two weeks and then the next woman says, ‘Well, I’m waiting for my yearly, and it’s going to be 18 months before I can get an appointment.’”
Vick wants the provincial government to be transparent and communicate with the public as to why this might happen. She said women want regular updates on how the province’s efforts to recruit and retain health-care workers like radiologists is progressing.
“Where are we at with that? Because it’s weighing on women. It’s the wait times, absolutely. How does one woman get in in two weeks who just automatically phones up and gets an appointment, and then the next lady who has been waiting for her yearly post-cancer screening is waiting 18 months?” she said.
“Where are we going wrong there?”
Gordon said the term “false positives” is misleading. She prefers the term “false alarms.”
False alarms can include a “blob” of normal breast tissue, cysts, or a non-cancerous lump called a fibroadenoma.
Gordon said for every 1,000 women who have a screening mammogram, 70 of them – or 7 per cent – will be called back for extra tests. According to medical data, only 11 of those 70 will go on to have a needle biopsy. Of those 11 women, four will be diagnosed with cancer.
“And of those four women, we found it early. It’s life-changing. We might have saved them major surgery. We might have saved them [from] chemotherapy. And that’s why we’re so gung-ho on checking out these things on a screening mammogram,” said Gordon.
As for “false negative” results from a mammogram screening, Gordon said it’s because cancer is discovered and treated, but the patient dies from something else sooner than that cancer might have killed her.
“For example, a woman gets treated for her breast cancer. Six months later, that poor unlucky woman gets diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and she dies within the year,” said Gordon, adding that health-care professionals cannot know what other health issues might happen post-screening.
“Six months later, she could have a fatal heart attack. Those possibilities are higher in older women. They are negligible in younger women.”
The SCA tells CBC it has launched online campaigns, including mythbusting campaigns that debunk common misinformation about mammograms.
“We work with the Saskatchewan Health Authority to disseminate our social media messaging as far as possible.”
The SCA said it also shares articles including the latest breast health information with the SHA and the Saskatchewan Medical Association for communication and distribution to family doctors and other health-care providers.
Still, Dense Breasts Canada, advocates and leading breast cancer specialists want to see a more direct approach to discrediting misinformation around mammogram safety — Namely to include it in letters and notifications like those sent to women, reminding them to book colorectal and pap test screening.
“We need to start mailing out to women at 43 years old. Did you know you’re eligible? Don’t listen to these myths that you might have seen on social media. And here are the stats. Here’s what can happen when we detect it early. And here’s what happens if we do find something,” Vick said.
“I don’t think that needs to be scary,” Vick said.
