Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening can be done with a mammogram or breast cancer exam.

Breast cancer screening is either a breast cancer examination by a doctor or a clinical screening mammogram at a radiologist's office. Some women do breast self examination, which has fallen out of favor because it doesn't seem to detect breast cancer as well as once thought.

The breast cancer examination involves you taking off your top and lying down on an examining table. The doctor flattens out the breast and feels for any lumps or hard areas in the breast. The doctor looks for dimpling of the skin, which could be an area where cancer has formed. Even if the doctor finds nothing, he or she may send you to have a screening mammogram.

Screening mammograms are important. A mammogram is a good breast cancer test. About 185,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer every year. Good prevention through a breast cancer test like a mammogram helps women discover their breast cancer sooner. Even with good testing, 41,000 women will die from breast cancer every year.

Breast cancer screening is different for women that are more at risk for breast cancer

Because one in every seven women will have breast cancer in their lifetime, every woman should have regular screening mammograms. She should have a breast cancer mammogram screening test every year or every other year after the age of forty and every year after the age of fifty.

Good prevention through a breast cancer test like a mammogram helps women discover their breast cancer sooner. Most breast cancers are found in women older than 55 but some women have a strong family history of breast cancer at a young age and should have a breast cancer mammogram sooner than age 40.

Medical studies show that regular breast cancer screening of women without symptoms has been helpful. Screening has reduced the risk of dying of breast cancer by about 45 percent.

There are different screening tests for women who are of normal risk and those who are at an above-normal risk. Normal risk women have no breast cancer symptoms and have never had breast cancer before. They have never had chest radiation and have no first degree relatives who have had breast cancer.

High risk women have a family history of breast cancer in a sibling, parent or daughter. They have been found to have early cancerous changes of the breast or previous breast cancer. They perhaps have had radiation to the chest for another form of cancer in the past.

Screening for breast cancer helps early diagnosis.

The mammogram is perhaps the best breast cancer screening tool we have. It uses x-rays to find areas of small calcium deposits in the breasts or white areas that may indicate a lump. A woman places her breast on an x-ray surface and the breast is flattened out so that the best image can be obtained. The radiologist reads the x-ray and determines if further testing is required.

Sometimes, an ultrasound of the breast helps doctors find out if a lump is made from fluid (a cyst) or is solid and possibly a cancerous tumor. If the lump is liquid, the ultrasound helps doctors find the cyst and the doctor can then remove the liquid from the cyst.

An ultrasound can be used to find areas of cancer in the breast so the doctor can use a hollow needle to take a sampling of the cells. The doctor can then find out if the lump is cancerous or not.

An MRI of the breast is another screening test for breast cancer that is used in high risk cancer situations or when a woman has dense breasts that do not show up well on x-ray. The doctor gives the patient an injection of a dye that helps to show up any cancerous areas. There is no evidence, however, that an MRI screening exam reduces the number of cancer deaths so it is used only occasionally.