Cancer is scary. As one of the most common cancers worldwide, breast cancer has affected the lives of many TRU students and their loved ones. That’s why the Wellness Centre, WolfPack Recreation and People & Culture (Human Resources) teamed up to bring in Dr. Liz Ewart to dispel myths and spread information.
Ewart is a general practitioner in oncology at the Royal Inland Hospital, lead physician at the Rae Fawcett Breast Health Clinic and clinical instructor with the UBC Department of Medicine. She has a close connection with TRU, having previously served as a campus physician.
Ewart’s talk, delivered to a crowded room in the Administrative Services building and to many virtual attendees, explored topics ranging from breast cancer risk factors to treatment and survivorship.
A key takeaway was the importance of regular mammograms after the age of 40.
“[Mammography] saves lives,” Ewart said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
She shared that screening mammography “reduces breast cancer death by about 40 to 50 per cent” and can result in less-invasive treatments if cancer is discovered early.
Most breast cancers start as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), where cancerous cells are entirely confined to the milk duct.
“If you catch a cancer at that stage, it is 100% curable because it has not invaded outside of the duct and it cannot invade into the breast tissue,” Ewart shared.
“Many people are very scared about the radiation associated with the mammogram, and they worry that that would cause breast cancer,” she said. “The radiation exposure from a mammogram is 0.4 millisieverts. You need an exposure of 100 millisieverts per year to have a risk of cancer… So the amount of radiation associated with a mammogram is very, very minimal. It’s equivalent to about three to five weeks of background radiation just living in this world.”
The recommended screening mammogram frequency is once every two years, or annually for high-risk individuals.
Ewart emphasized that breast cancer screening is not only important for cisgender women, but for transgender, non-binary and two-spirit individuals as well.
“It’s important to recognize that top surgery is not the same as a mastectomy,” she said. “There is still tissue left behind when you have top surgery, so you still need to have screening, even if you’ve had some breast tissue removed. If you’re a trans woman, you should start your screening as per cis female guidelines, if you’ve been on hormone therapy for more than five years.”
Among the workshop’s 40+ attendees was Selena Carl, a second-year Master’s of Environmental Science student.
“I’ve had lots of family members with a variety of cancers,” Carl shared. “My mom actually just had early breast cancer from a mammogram. [It was] fine, because it caught it so soon.”
Carl said that campus health events matter because they provide “ease of access,” as students don’t have to go out of their way to get reliable advice from a physician.
“If you’re already coming to school, and you can fit it into your schedule, why not?”
With the prevalence of social media, students are frequently inundated with medical information and advice of dubious accuracy. “There’s a lot of myths out there,” Carl said. “It’s nice to actually hear from an expert.”
“I tell people not to Google things [after a diagnosis],” Ewart told the Omega. “I give them a list of resources – reliable websites that I trust. I’m not saying people shouldn’t do their own research, [but] it’s important that they ensure the sites they’re looking at are accurate. There’s so much misinformation out there.”
The Omega asked Ewart how she keeps her head up, given the heavy task of communicating breast cancer diagnoses to patients.
“Someone has to do it,” she replied simply. “When you present [a diagnosis] to someone, you can give them an idea of what they’re going to expect in the next couple of months … I think it’s important for someone to be able to say, ‘Okay, you’re probably going to see a surgeon in two weeks. You can expect your surgery in five weeks.’ These are the things that you can expect. These are the things that we’re looking for … It’s important for them to know they’re going to be looked after. They’re not going to fall through the cracks. If they know they’re going to be supported through it, it makes a big difference.”
Readers interested in learning more about breast cancer can visit the BC Cancer website for key facts on diagnosis and treatment.