Thank you.

Thank you very much for having me here and for the opportunity to speak on the important topic that this is.

My name is Kimberly Carson, and I'm the chief executive officer of Breast Cancer Canada.

Breast Cancer Canada is the only national organization that's clearly focused on funding breast cancer research, and we've been doing that since 1991. We advocate for more funding in breast cancer research and diagnostics and precision oncology, and certainly the task force recommendation on May 30 is of great concern to us.

Despite calls from patient advocates like me at Breast Cancer Canada and from health care providers and patients across Canada to lower the age of the systematic breast cancer screening program to 40, the task force remained with the guidelines of 50 to 75. Obviously, we have a number of research projects that go against this recommendation.

We believe that the screening should be lowered to a lower age because we know for sure that detecting it early saves lives. When it's detected early and it hasn't spread—it has not become metastatic—the five-year relative survival rate is close to 99%. Making that diagnosis at an earlier age and stage, and not delaying treatment, obviously increases the survival rate.

The other thing I would like you to consider is that there are many populations where the risk is even higher at a younger age, including Black and Hispanic women. For example, triple-negative is one of the more aggressive forms of breast cancer and tends to be at higher rates in Black and Hispanic women, and certainly younger, at 10% to 20% of the diagnoses. The other consideration is women with dense breasts, who are obviously more at risk with a delayed diagnosis and less chance of MRI screening.

All of this leads to a burden on the health care system.

There are steps we could take certainly to reduce that burden. An earlier diagnosis reduces the number of systemic treatments, the complexity of the treatments, the repercussions, the overtreatment with chemotherapy, surgery and radiation.

For patients who receive stage three or stage four therapy, their therapy will go on over a longer period of time and has a greater impact—greater disability—as opposed to women who would perhaps be diagnosed at a younger age and an earlier stage, where they could go back into the workforce or remain employed at the same time and continue to care for their families and contribute to society.

Certainly, earlier screening at the age of 40 is going to play a very important role for those health outcomes for our patients across Canada.

We also see some inequities in breast cancer screening. There are a number of provinces where the screening is at 50, which makes it inaccessible for women at a lower age, but then we see some provinces where they can self-refer into a program at a younger age.

The other thing I would add is that women need to be prompted and reminded that they're not health care professionals and it's certainly up to the task force to recommend the screening age.

The other thing Breast Cancer Canada would like to see is review in a more timely manner. There are new therapies and new novel treatments coming out. Right now, we're talking about mammography and screening, but in the future there will be things like blood tests and new technologies. We certainly would like to see that timing get a little quicker—at least once every two years—so that we would have the opportunity to take advantage of all of the new breakthroughs in technology that we have.

We have some amazing breast cancer researchers right here in Canada, and we should really be listening to what they have to say to help us provide that quality and equity across Canada and help to save more lives through breast cancer research.

Thank you very much for your time, and thanks for taking a moment to listen to me.