The Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program (PQDCS), which was launched in 1998 by the Ministry of Health and Social Services, suggests a positive impact on the mortality rate according to the Institute’s evaluation report National Public Health Agency (INSPQ).

The report released this week notes that since 1998, the PQDCS participation rate has increased by 16 percentage points, from 49.6% in 2001 to 65.6% in 2019. Over the past ten years, detection rates breast cancers have progressed, as has 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 INSPQ report suggests that although the ability of PQDCS to detect breast cancers has improved, it has come at the cost of an increase in false positives.

The number of participants who required a diagnostic investigation following a screening mammogram increased. In most cases, the results were benign, but these additional tests may have generated anxiety, pain and biopsies in affected women, according to the report.

Since its launch in 1998, the Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program has 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.