Like every year, the Pink October operation aims to raise awareness among women about breast cancer screening, which kills 12,000 people per year in France.
The issue is essential since more the diagnosis is made early, the less extensive the treatments, the better the chances of recovery. This is why it is recommended that women between the ages of 50 and 74 have a mammogram every two years. Although this exam is 100% covered by health insurance, more than half of women in this age group do not do it..
Only 46.5% of women aged 50 to 74 get tested
Note that the screening participation rate is calculated over two years, in order to take into account a period during which all women aged 50 to 74 are invited by mail to be screened. Thus the figures published in 2024, which concern the period 2022-2023, show that in France only a little more than 5 million women aged in this age group have had a mammogram, or 46.5% of them. , compared to 47.6% for 2021-2022.
As shown in the infographic above, the screening rate has fallen significantly in our departments between the periods 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. This is particularly the case in Savoie, where it went from 57.7% to 51.6%, but also in Haute-Savoie or Vaucluse, departments which show a drop of 5 points in the participation rate of women in screening.
A catch-up effect
This deterioration is explained by particularly high figures in 2021… Many women were not able to have a mammogram during the Covid period… There was therefore a catch-up effect.
If in Isère and in the Hautes-Alpes the screening rate is well above the national average with 54% and 55.3% respectively, certain departments are worrying: this is therefore the case of Vaucluse where the share of women aged 50 to 74% participating in breast cancer screening fell to 41.4%. It is barely better in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence with a rate of 43.2%.
Some figures
60 000 : in France there are around 60,000 new cases of breast cancer each year.
33% : breast cancer represents 33% of female cancers.
80 % breast cancers develop after age 50.
The median age of diagnosis is 64 ans.
1 in 2 women ignore the risks associated with breast cancer, i.e. 14.8 million women aged 18 or over.
2 out of 3 women are unaware that alcohol is a major risk factor for breast cancer.
49% of women do not identify tobacco as an aggravating factor in breast cancer.
(Source: The League Against Cancer)
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