Representatives from the Saskatchewan Breast Cancer study will set up at the Stoughton Central School from Monday, July 28 to Sunday, Aug. 3 for the third round of surveys since the province-wide study began in 1995.

Study founder Dr. Carol Haines said Monday that Stoughton has had a very high participation rate in past surveys and a local organizing committee has agreed to host this next round.

Every Stoughton woman was to be called from July 17-25 by local volunteers for a one-hour appointment with the survey representatives. A dozen survey computers will also be set up at the school for the week.

"We are really hoping the majority of Stoughton's women will make the time to come in during this special, one-week session," said study rep Tracy Zambory. "But there will be a make up session in the future for those who simply cannot make an appointment during July."

Dr. Haines said the town offices of smaller communities across the province are also being contacted during July to find volunteer organizers to host similar sessions in their own communities after harvest is over this fall.

"We have a huge volunteer army all over the province," she said. Given the shortage of research funds, it's the only way to get the women from many communities involved in the study, she said. Weyburn has been visited twice in the past and study organizers are hoping to be able to return in the near future.

The project in Saskatchewan is the only place on earth where records are being kept of the daily lives of women to detect factors leading to breast cancer.

"Sadly, but inevitably, after a number of years there will be breast cancers occurring in some of the study's many participants," said Dr. Haines. "Their recorded information will be compared with the responses of women who did not develop breast cancer."

About 60,000 women in the province have completed surveys that will be used after a decade, or so, to find clues to the cause of breast cancer. Women answer computerized questions about a wide variety of exposures and experiences in their daily lives, from toiletries to microwaves ovens and from child-bearing to coffee drinking.