Identifying Women With Dense Breasts At High Risk For Interval Cancer

There are several confusing topics for women when it comes to their breast health such as how often they should be screened with a mammogram, what age to start getting their mammograms, or how often they should have a mammogram. One of the newer discussions that has emerged recently is if women should be told that they have dense breast tissue. Several states have even moved a step further and are mandating that women be told this information. I believe that the states should go beyond this when passing the law and require insurance companies to pay for supplemental testing of these women who fall into this category and have additional risk factors.

Nurse Practitioner Veneta Masson, author of “Why I don’t Get Mammograms” argues the topic of how routine mammograms don’t save lives. Masson being a health care professional has been well educated on maintaining optimum health and preventing disease. Though she may have the knowledge and awareness, she however uses faulty generalizations as to why she does not receive annual mammogram

Doctors need to know the amount of cancer and where it is in the body to be able to choose the best possible treatment. For example, the treatment for early stage breast

Currently mammography and ultrasound are basic imaging techniques for detection and localization of breast tumor. Breast Ultrasound is a typically painless medical test that uses reflected sound waves for further evaluation of a breast abnormality or a specific area seen on mammography. Ultrasound can locate and measure abnormalities or changes to determine if a breast lump is solid or filled with fluid. A mammogram is an x-ray of the breast which may find tumors that are too small to feel. Women aged 40 to 74 years should have annual screening mammograms to lower chance of dying from breast cancer(2,15).Mammograms are less likely to find breast tumors in women younger than 50 years. This may

Over the past decade breast cancer has become one of the most predominant diseases in the United States. Breast cancer starts out as a malignant tumor in the tissues of the breast which is formed from the uncontrolled growth of abnormal breast cells. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, but it can also appear in men. (Stephan, 2010)

Over the past two decades, mammography has become the central tool used to detect cancerous regions within the breast. This evolution has been enabled by advancements in the technology itself and its implementation into healthcare regulations of numerous countries around the world (Pisano et al., 2004). In its beginning stages, breast cancer is a relatively treatable disease, and increased awareness for both mammograms and self-breast examinations have led to earlier diagnoses. Studies suggest that increases in mammography screenings have been one of the main reasons that breast

If an unusually form of lump forms around the breast area, that issue/need becomes a problem which needs to be solved. To solve the problem or take advantage of the opportunity, the consumer/ patient seeks information regarding potential problem from specialist who then can assist with evaluating alternative. The goal is to find the best response to the problem or opportunity.

In today’s society, women are not getting their mammograms done because they feel they are not necessary or because they are afraid of the results of the mammograms. Since women do not get their mammograms done, they are exposed to breast cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, women who get mammograms, reduce about “15% to 20% in mortality from breast cancer” (“National Cancer Institute” 1). If women would increase the rate of getting mammograms, there will be less deaths in women.

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death in women in the United States. A mammogram, is a simple test done with x-ray, to screen women for abnormalities of the breast. Over the past six years, the guidelines put out by various healthcare organizations have changed multiple times on when women should begin screening mammograms. Based on statistical data collected by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), 20 percent of women go without a screening mammogram for their own various reasons, of which may be lack of insurance, lack of time or lack of knowledge as to when they should be getting a screening mammogram done due to the recent changes in recommendations. The utilization of annual screening mammograms beginning at age 40 will continue to help reduce the incidence rate of women with breast cancer, or catch it early enough so that treatment can be sought.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the US. About 40,000 women die from breast cancer each year, making it “the second leading cause of cancer death among women” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010) requires insurers to “provide coverage for and shall not impose any cost sharing requirements for” preventive services which are “in the current recommendation of the United States Preventive Services Task Force” (USPSTF). Nevertheless, the ACA makes an exception for breast cancer screening by stating that the USPSTF’s recommendation regarding mammogram “shall be considered the most current other than those issued in or around November 2009”. By using this legislative tool, the federal government mandates health insurers to provide coverage for annual or biennial mammograms in women aged 40 and older (US Preventive Services Task Force, 2013).

Despina Kontos, the lab PI of the department of radiology at Penn along with her team, the CBIG (Computational Breast Imaging Group) is working on developing a research program that can assess and identify if a woman is at high risk of developing breast cancer by analyzing the breast density and parenchymal texture from digital breast images. The goal is to incorporate lengthy biomarkers of cancer risk information into better assessment of breast cancer risk for women. Despina believed that technology has helped cancer research in many ways, she said that technology has “made available imaging equipment that allow us to detect cancers at very early stages when they are easier to treat. In addition, technology has provided us with the ability to analyze a

The manner in which mammography as a whole has assisted in many detections of breast cancer in women around the world has shown that it is really vital to the screening process of breast cancer, and to think that mammography is still evolving to greater things of detecting these small lesions of cancer (Kopans, 2007: 1).

cancer. The use of film mammography can be very hard to recognize breast cancer in

The most and first screening method to use is mammography. Film-screen mammography which appears in 1976, then in 1997 Full-field digital mammography appears [6]and finally in 2011 digital breast tomosynthe¬sis or 3-dimensional (3-D) mammography appears [1]. Mammography is a type of x-ray of the breasts. This technique used to early detect very small tumors in women in age 50 to 70. This technique is considered as the most valuable and effective tool in detection breast cancer and reducing mortality rates but it has some drawbacks such as it is not affective for younger women than forty years old; type of X-Ray which cause damage in tissue; expensive; consume the time and not preferred in surgical cases [7][8]. To detect cancer in breast by

In recent years, cancer prevalence has been increasing globally. It is now one of the top 10 causes of death among the middle and high income countries worldwide (World Health Organisation, 2008). In Singapore, cancer has surpassed cardiovascular disease and become the top killer over the last 3 years (Ministry of Health, 2007). Breast cancer tops the chart among Singaporean women (Health Promotion Board, 2007). Thousands of women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually and it causes approximately 270 deaths each year (Jara-Lazaro, et al., 2010). The lifetime risk that a woman in Singapore getting breast cancer is now 1 in every 17 which has risen compared to past two decades (National Cancer Centre Singapore, 2006). Hence, breast