**4. Conclusions**

Using a series of case studies, we have highlighted the impacts of suboptimal cancer screening on the lives of women. We highlighted stories of late diagnosis due to: outdated and inconsistent screening guidelines from the Canadian Task Force; inconsistencies between those guidelines and those of individual jurisdictions, creating confusion for medical practitioners and patients; geographical inequities in screening between jurisdictions, resulting in an increased risk for women in a few provinces; limited awareness of both medical professionals and patients of the risk of dense breast; and the dismissal of women by medical practitioners.

We ask for the medical community to advocate for better policies by: (a) individually and collectively asking for breast screening guidelines to be updated to reflect the latest scientific evidence; (b) information-sharing between the medical community and patients; and (c) the national and provincial collection of stage IV breast cancer incidences.

Action from our whole community to advocate for optimal screening practices will help to reduce mortality from breast cancer as well as reduce the incidence of stage III and de novo stage IV breast cancers, reduce aggressive treatment and surgery, lessen the need for chemotherapy, and increase the quality of life for women with breast cancer.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualisation, J.D. and V.G.; data curation, J.D.; writing—original draft preparation, V.G.; writing—review and editing, J.D., V.G., and M.D.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Written informed consent was obtained from the patients to publish this paper.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** We offer our sincerest thanks to the women whose stories are shared within this manuscript, and the many women who have shared their stories with Dense Breasts Canada over the years.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
