2024-01-08 15:06:20
After 20 years of implementation, the Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program (PQDCS) suggests a positive impact on the mortality rate, but it has certain drawbacks.
According to the evaluation report from the National Institute of Public Health (INSPQ), the participation rate in the PQDCS has increased by 16 percentage points since 1998, from 49.6% in 2001 to 65.6% in 2019. Over the past ten years, breast cancer detection rates have increased. The same goes for the detection of cancers detected early.
The proportion of investigations concluded by imaging examination jumped from 67.2% in 1998 to 80.9% in 2019. At the same time, the proportion of diagnostic investigations requiring surgical biopsies fell by 7.6% of cases in 1998 to 1.2% in 2019.
However, the number of participants who had to undergo a diagnostic investigation following a screening mammogram increased (one in ten). In most cases, the results are benign. These additional tests can generate anxiety, pain and biopsies in affected women.
About the Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program (PQDCS)
Launched in 1998 by the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the PQDCS has since welcomed one and a half million Quebec women aged 50 to 69. It has made it possible to perform nearly six million mammograms, to detect 35,000 breast cancers. The Program was gradually established in the regions to cover them in full as of 2004. Two years earlier, mobile screening units began to travel through certain parts of Quebec. The deployment of digital mammography began in 2006 to definitively replace analog mammography in 2014. Since its beginnings, the INSPQ has continuously evaluated the progress of the Program.
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