In 2018, 47-year-old Adriana Ermter found a lump in her armpit. Her doctor referred her for a mammogram, but the clinic said it was likely just a calcification in her breast tissue. After months of requests for additional screening, the Toronto resident received a second mammogram, an ultrasound, an MRI and a biopsy. The biopsy confirmed the. “If I hadn’t advocated for myself, under the guidelines I wouldn’t have had regular mammograms until I was 50,” Ermter says.
Mammograms can spot cancer two to three years before physical symptoms develop, but the guidelines for referrals vary between provinces—which is why Dense Breasts Canada just launched, a website that helps navigate those guidelines. Women who are 40 or older in British Columbia, P.E.I., Nova Scotia and the Yukon, for example, can refer themselves for a mammogram.