What is A Stitch In Time Project?

Women’s journeys towards breast cancer prevention

Through courageous personal stories A Stitch in Time will reveal women’s journeys towards breast cancer prevention.  As they navigate the prevention pathways and demonstrate the options available to women who are at an increased risk to develop breast cancer.  By showing women what the options look like, what they might expect from their own journey and presenting opportunities to find accurate information and support groups, the aim is to encourage women to be empowered in the decision process- ultimately hoping to prevent the breast cancer from developing the first instance. There’s a great deal of information informing women that breast cancer is serious, that 1 in 8 Australian women will develop breast cancer and an enormous sea of pink that reminds us instantly of the need for funding for research and support.  In fact, breast cancer is the most common cancer in Australian women, it’s the second most common cancer to cause death in women after lung cancer, and accounts for 27.4 per cent of all new cancers in women.  At present, the risk of developing breast cancer before the age of 85 in women is 1 in 8.

About 5% of breast cancers are due to an inherited faulty gene.

However, how do you know if you have one of these ‘faulty genes’ and are at a higher risk than the average women? The understanding of what being at ‘increased or high risk’ for developing breast cancer is not widely understood in the general population.  In fact it generates a great deal of confusion and stress for many families when they learn of a breast cancer diagnosis in a relative.

So how is genetic risk assessed, how do people find this information and what can then do once they have it?  More importantly what can they do if they learn they are in fact at higher risk? As a communications project A Stitch in Time will explore these questions through the stories of women living the experience.

We’ve begun filming with Dyna Eldaief who is at high risk of developing breast cancer.  We’re seeking more participants to share their stories in order to show different choices and pathways. We’d like to see all women armed with the information they need to inform how they will ‘make a stitch in time’.

You can find out more about Dyna’s story Dyna’s Story