The national Pink October campaign is in full swing in the Tarn to raise women’s awareness of breast cancer screening. Since the Covid crisis and the closure of radiology centers, the number of screenings has been falling.
For public health actors in Tarn, in particular the 5 permanent staff of the cancer screening center headquartered in Albi, the finding is bittersweet. Sweet because after a year and a half of health crisis, not without consequences on awareness campaigns for breast cancer screening, the Pink October operation seems to be back in attendance this year.
With nearly 1,000 people at Place du Vigan in Albi last weekend and many events to come in the department, the organizers hope to see the number of screenings go up for the women aged 50 to 75 concerned every two years. Because that’s where the rub is.
From 2017 to 2019, 52% of the 35,000 women invited for a mammogram had made an appointment. In 2020 and 2021, they were only 46%. Result, misleading, with the drop in the percentage of screenings, the number of breast cancers discovered in 2020 is 97 against 110 to 120 in 2018 and 2019.
One in eight women
“We are far from the 75% necessary for the device to be effective,” laments Dr. Max Barraut-Krabé, director of the screening center. “What worries us is that we are starting to find stage 3 and even 4 cancers. More advanced stages that we should have screened for in 2020.”
And this specialist to recall two meaningful statistics. In the case of tumors of less than 2 cm, 90% of stage 1 breast cancers detected in time are cured. In the Tarn as at the national level, one in eight women is at risk of being affected by this cancer, which is the leading cause of death from cancer in women.
Less than 20 years ago, 14 radiology centers in the department performed mammograms for this screening program. Many small centers have closed for regroupings in large downtown areas. Today there are only 8 radiology centers to participate in the screening program, including those of the hospitals of Albi and Lavaur which only provide a few shifts.
At the height of the Covid crisis, two radiology centers, one in Saint-Sulpice and one in Lauvaur closed. They have not reopened. However, the Lavaur center provided 2,000 mammograms per year. “It was almost 10% of the total” specifies Dr. Barrault-Krabé.
Before, you could do mammograms in Gaillac and Saint-Sulpice. “Today, women have to go as far as Albi or Castres and the centers are often saturated. At the Lavaur hospital, the waiting time for a mammogram is 6 months. »
The Tarn screening center has set up a new prevention tool for isolated people in a precarious situation. In collaboration with the CPAM, they invite these women to a medical consultation with a screening representative and a midwife, with test delivery and radiology appointments.
“We don’t give up, we have to start over so that women know that breast cancer is still there,” recalls Max Barraud-Krabé.