MORE than 20 women in Port Stephens have breast cancer, but don't know it.
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Breast cancer claims the lives of more than 900 NSW women each year, yet despite these odds, over 400,000 NSW women haven’t had their recommended screening mammogram in the past two years.
It’s an alarming number, considering newly released figures from BreastScreen NSW show that if each of these women were to have their mammogram, more than 2000 would be found to have breast cancer.
BreastScreen NSW Hunter New England is now taking action to find the 20 women in the Port Stephens area who have breast cancer but don’t know it.
There are 3900 women in the Port Stephens area who haven’t had their recommended screening mammogram in the last two years.
Breast screening is an important diagnostic tool that can detect breast cancer in its early stages which improves the rate of survival.
Better still, breast screening is free, it is readily available, and it takes about 20 minutes for the actual screening process.
I urge women to make screening a priority.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Australia and is the second biggest cancer killer of Australian women.
We need to significantly increase the numbers of women screening and in turn reduce the numbers of women dying from this disease.
Breast screening can find cancers when they are as small as a grain of rice, well before they can be seen or felt.
Almost all women who have their breast cancer detected at this early stage will recover.
If a screening mammogram picks up a cancer, treatment options are also improved and a woman is much less likely to need a mastectomy.
A mobile screening van will be visiting the Centro Raymond Terrace shopping centre from May 11, 2016.
After the Raymond Terrace visit, the mobile van will move to the Soldiers Point Bowling Club in September.
Appointments are available all year at the NBN Telethon Mater Institute located in Waratah.
Call BreastScreen NSW on 13 20 50 to book a free screening mammogram.
For more, go to breastscreen.nsw.gov.au.