Source: Radio New Zealand
The Breast Cancer Foundation wants women with symptoms to be referred directly for diagnostic imaging. BSIP via AFP
The Breast Cancer Foundation is calling for women with symptoms to be referred directly for diagnostic imaging, bypassing the GP.
Chief executive Ah-Leen Rayner, speaking at a pink ribbon breakfast at Parliament on Thursday morning, said this could remove up to eight weeks of delay, cut pressure on primary care, and reduce inequities.
Right now, women who attended routine screening but reported a lump or other symptom were turned away and told to see their GP, she said.
Allowing BreastScreen Aotearoa to refer symptomatic women directly to diagnostic imaging “could remove up to eight weeks of delay, cut pressure on primary care, and reduce inequities for women least able to self-advocate or pay privately”.
International evidence showed every four-week delay in starting treatment from diagnosis increases the relative risk of death by 8 percent, she said. A 12-week delay from diagnosis increased the relative risk by 26 percent.
Early prevention could also save the system money, she said, as treating late stage breast cancer cost $120,000 to $150,000 per patient, compared to less than $30,000 for early stage cases.
In Auckland, only 60 percent of women received their first treatment within 28 days of diagnosis, and that fell to 22 percent in Northland.
“This adds weeks of delay and pressure to primary care.”
Right now, 55 percent of diagnoses happened only after symptoms appeared, and 15 percent of those diagnosed still died from the disease, despite it being “increasingly treatable and curable”.
Bottleneck in pathology slowing down diagnosis
Rayner explained even when screening found something, there was another bottleneck most people never saw – pathology.
“Every treatment decision flows through it,” she said. “Yet our public system remains largely analogue, pathologists staining tissue, counting cells one by one through a microscope. It’s slow and it’s workforce constrained.”
Health New Zealand estimated a pathology workforce shortage is projected to reach 11 percent by 2030.
Rayner worried this would increase delays, and encouraged a shift toward digital pathology.
RNZ previously reported artificial intelligence could soon be used to screen for breast cancer in the public system.
Health Minister says age extension already catching cancers
Health Minister Simeon Brown, who hosted the event on Thursday morning, said the government had made good on the election commitment to extend the upper age for funded breast screening from 69 to 74, in October last year.
“And when this is fully rolled out by 2029, an additional 52,000 women each year will be screened, building on the 270,000 already screened annually.”
Since October, more than half of the extra 31,800 women invited for screening had taken up the opportunity, he said, catching 190 breast cancers that wouldn’t have been detected under the old rules.
“These are women who may otherwise not have known they had breast cancer until much later, when treatment can be more difficult and outcomes much poorer,” Brown said.
His government had also increased funding for Pharmac by $604 million, enabling access to new medicines, including Keytruda and Hertu, for eligible people with advanced breast cancer.
He also recently announced the expansion of community infusion services around the country.
Survivor says she regrets delaying her mammogram
Andi Shirtcliffe says she wished she had acted faster when she was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 57. RNZ / Kate Green
Andi Shirtcliffe was diagnosed at the age of 57 in October 2022.
A lump was picked up on screening that wouldn’t have been detected by self-examination, “so I was extremely lucky to be within the screening-eligible age group”.
But she had delayed that screening, she said. “I was too busy. You know the story. We’re in the middle of the pandemic and my country needed me.”
She said she wished she had acted faster. “I may not have had to live with the long-term effects of the medicines or having lymph nodes removed.”
She had two surgeries to remove the affected tissue, and then chemotherapy, to which she had a bad reaction that left her immune system depleted. It caused repeated hospitalizations, and finally, she underwent radiation therapy.
She wasn’t yet at the five-year post-cancer mark, she said. “I still have two years to go, but so far so good.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Original source: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/05/21/women-with-breast-cancer-symptoms-should-be-sent-to-specialist-directly-foundation/