Reply to Interesting research on the over diagnosis of breast 'cancer' due to mammograms

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was reading up about breast density in light of these new laws being passed and the new "know your breast density campaign".

Something to consider: if you are pre-menopausal, you usually have more dense tissue. Age 50 was chosen as an arbitrary age because a great number of women who are menopausal are 50 or older For women (like myself) who are not menopausal, my tissue will be denser.

For a pre-menopausal woman with no lumps, no issues, no history in the family, a mammogram can actually do more harm than good, especially psychologically because you are much more vulnerable to call-backs. Which is why the recommendations were switched to start at age 50, not 40. You are also much more likely to go through further invasive testing.

I noticed on the forms I filled out, they did NOT ask if I was still menstruating. So the radiologist has no idea if I am pre-menopausal or post-menopausal. All they have is the age of 53, and they will make assumptions based on that. Not really good medicine, eh?

So I will not heed any potential recommendations for further testing simply based on breast density. They will have to tell me they found something, show me what it is on the x-ray, and tell me why they want to explore further. After menopause, that thought process will change.

I did ask the doc at my gyno about it and she agreed that the false positive risk was high and it's a balancing act.[/quote]

Where I get my mammograms they do ask. But its somewhat irrelevant. I am well past menopause and still have dense breasts. The issue with breast density is not that it increases your risk but that it makes mammograms difficult to read. A good facility will ask for a magnified view of an area of density so they can get a better look.

-- signed, someone whose breast cancer diagnosis was delayed because the tumor wasn't seen due to breast density[/quote]

Actually, they claim it to be a separate risk factor.[/quote]
Would you please put that in perspective to the other risk factors?[/quote]

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