Our Cry Wolf campaign is about Breast Cancer and young women, all we want is a better front line in the fight against breast cancer for younger woman. We want the GPs to stop guessing when it comes to breast lumps. To many young woman are being misdiagnosed  just because they are so far away from the main stream and they are losing out on the benefits of an early diagnoses.

But Breast Cancer is still the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women under 35

Here is a comment about our campaign from Ann Keen MP Parliamentary Under Secretary of State.

“Chapter 4 of the Cancer Reform Strategy, we set out our commitment that, from the end of 2009, all patients with breast symptoms urgently referred by their GP to a specialist should be seen within 14 days, whether or not cancer is suspected.”

But if you read the new guide lines issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence  (NICE) all is not what it seems. If you are over 40 and close to the main stream it is ideal but under 40 and this is what NICE say.

“Breast cancer in women aged younger than 30 years is rare, but does occur. Benign lumps (for example, fibroadenoma) are common, however, and a policy of referring these women urgently would not be appropriate; instead, non-urgent referral should be considered. However, in women aged younger than 30 years:

• with a lump that enlarges, or
• with a lump that has other features associated with cancer (fixed and hard), or
• in whom there are other reasons for concern such as family history

an urgent referral should be made.”

Approximately 2,000 women in their twenties and thirties will be diagnosed with breast cancer every year.

Little has changed between the old guide lines and the new ones and they still expect the GPs to guess if a lump is benign or cancerous, using their clinical judgement of course but how many of them get it wrong. As they do not keep statistics on misdiagnosis or bad guesses no ones knows.

There is one other concern, if they are unsure about the lump all they have to say now is, come back if it gets bigger. If it does get bigger, then the young woman has lost the chance of an early diagnosis.

I wonder what most GPs would do if their 26 year old daughter came home with concerns over a breast lump, would they really be happy, with a guess. Even more important what would Ann Keen say, wait and see if it gets any bigger, I don’t think so.

We really do need a better front line against the fight against breast cancer in younger woman and we need to take all the guess work away from breast cancer diagnosis. But we do realise breast cancer maybe the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women under 35 but it is rare.  We just want to make sure everywomen no matter what age, gets the best possible chance of an early diagnosis.

You can find out more at www.smallcarsbighearts.co.uk or sign our petition at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Crywolf/ or join our FaceBook Group.