Reply to Mammogram catching stage 3 bc.

Forum Index » Health and Medicine

Reply to "Mammogram catching stage 3 bc. "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Yes. Mammograms are not that effective for women with dense breasts. https://www.yalemedicine.org/conditions/dense-breasts#

"With conventional mammography, while we can be as accurate as 98% in a fatty breast, our sensitivity can drop to as low as 30% in women with extremely dense breasts, which is why supplementary screening with ultrasound or MRI—depending on the patient’s personal risk factors—can be such an important aid in finding breast cancer,”

The supplementary screening with MRI and Ultrasound is generally not paid for as part of free preventative screening.  Doctors also generally don't recommend it for all dense-breasted women - just those with symptoms and/or a strong family history of breast cancer.

My gynecologist missed my breast lump. 2 mammograms missed my breast lump. Only because I had a palpable lump did I get an Ultrasound, which missed other lumps in my breast (technician didn't even check the rest of my breast).

An MRI found original lump, another lump and a large "area of suspicion" and I had more biopsies.

Ultimately, one biopsy showed invasive cancer.  I was very lucky to have caught it early but that only happened because I felt a lump.  And, the full extent was only known because I decided on MX. Only after the MX did the pathology show the extensive DCIS which the mammogram never saw at all and which the MRI only labelled as an "area of enhancement".  One area of DCIS was unseen on any radiology. The invasive cancer was seen on MRI.

So, yes, mammograms can miss cancer, particularly in women with dense breasts.  I only caught it because I had done a fingertip palpation of my breast (flat hand sweeps of breast by me and doctor missed the lumps).

This is your PSA - if you have dense breasts talk with your doctor about additional screening by MEI and/or ultrasound.  If you live in MD, Gov. Wes Moore just signed legislation forcing insurance companies to cover these additional diagnostic and screening exams for breast cancer for free (no copay).
https://www.radnet.com/about-radnet/news/maryland-legislation-diagnostic-imaging[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics