“I had no symptoms, I was feeling very well, I had just my regular breast screen where they do the reminder every two years because I’m of that age,” Ms Coleman said.

Ms Coleman almost threw the mail containing the results in the bin before opening it but changed her mind and found she had an early detection.

“Basically on the milk ducts there’s some calcium deposits, those are usually the ones that will turn into something else if it’s not removed but it wasn’t at that initial stage,” she said.

Diagnosis led to 13 months of operations but a follow-up scan has revealed her to now be cancer free.

“There were no symptoms but I was being proactive rather than reactive and I had choices,” she said. 

“Once you can find a lump it’s been there quite a while.

“I feel I was one of the fortunate ones.”

BreastScreen NSW Greater Western manager Meg O’Brien said it was important women aged between 50 and 74 tested every two years despite claims on the 7.30 Report last month by Danish professor Peter Gotzsche that cancer screening programs resulted in over diagnosis and could cause more harm than good through radiography and other medical interventions.

“Over diagnosis from mammographic screening refers to the small number of breast cancers that are detected through screening that would not have otherwise progressed to the point of being detected,” she said. 

She said it is not possible to identify which cancers will progress and the term over diagnosis does not signify an error or misdiagnosis.

“Generally, the earlier a cancer is found, the more treatment options are available and the greater the chances of survival from the disease,” she said.

BreastScreen NSW figures state that one in eight women in NSW will develop breast cancer in their lifetime but less than one in two attend regular screening.

tanya.marschke@fairfaxmedia.com.au