'Fear won't protect you from breast cancer'

A woman has described the shock of finding out she had breast cancer despite feeling she was in the prime of health.

Prof Linda Flores, from the University of Oxford, was diagnosed at the age of 52 in 2024 after a mammogram.

She said: "If I had gone with my instincts that said I was remarkably healthy… then I might not be sitting in this chair today."

Flores, who has no family history of cancer, said her advice to women considering a mammogram was: "Fear won't protect you."

Her 2cm (0.8in) tumour was hidden behind her nipple, so it was difficult to feel through self-checks alone.

She said: "You hear women say, 'I knew something was wrong, I had a bad feeling.' I had no such feeling. I felt amazing.

"It was a real surprise and a real shock to hear the doctor say those words 'highly suspicious for cancer'.

"And then a couple of weeks later I had the results of the biopsy and I was told that yes, indeed, it was."

Enda Kenneally was diagnosed in March following a routine mammogram.

Her 2.5cm (1in) lump was buried deep in her breast and was found early, at stage one.

"There was nothing that made me think there was anything untoward going on," the 65-year-old recalled.

"So if I hadn't gone to that mammogram, the cancer that was found would have continued to grow.

"I did all the checks that women these days mostly do and there was nothing that made me think there was anything untoward was going on."

More than one in nine women have avoided having a breast lump or abnormality checked, according to a recent survey from Nuffield Health.

Pain from the mammogram and anxiety were among the reasons women gave for being put off, the private health provider said.

Senior Radiographer Lorna Goodwin, from Nuffield's The Manor Hospital in Oxford, said mammograms pick up concerns in only four out of every 100 women screened.

She said: "Those ones that you pick up, those four ladies, are the important ones and that's why it's so important to do the 100.

"A mammogram can save your life – don't put it off."

Currently, the NHS invites women for routine screening every three years from the age of 50 up to 71, although you can request a mammogram at any time.