News - Screening for Breast Cancer
On 11/16/09 the U.S. Preventive Service
Task Force published an article in which
among other recommendations they suggest
that women in their 40s don't need yearly
mammograms and routine mammograms should
start after age 50, and should be done every
other year.
We are not a medical facility, but we are a
durable medical equipment provider, and
accredited institution, we feel that it is
our job to mention to our readers our
opinion about this article.
It is important to note, that while the
standard recommendation is that women over
40 have their mammogram every other year,
one third of these women will not take
advantage of this screening tool due to
various reasons, such as lack of access,
education or awareness. It's also
appropriate to remember that only 10% of
women with breast cancer have a family
history of the disease.
Mammography is not yet the ideal and perfect
tool for early diagnosis of breast cancer
but it is the best we have at the moment and
it has improved the survival rate over the
past 20 years and that's a fact. On the
other hand we know very little of the
biology of the cancer cells and more
research needs to be done in this area.
Without a doubt the article just raised more
questions than answers.
We at the HERS Breast Cancer Foundation
encourage ALL women to be proactive and
aware of their breast health to understand
their risks and to follow existing
recommendations for routine screening,
including mammograms beginning at the age of
40. We support and are in agreement with
important organizations in our field such as
the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure,
the American Cancer Society and the American
College for Radiology . Please visit
www.komen.org for more information and
to get more details on their
recommendations.
The referred article also recommends against
clinicians teaching women how to perform
breast self-examination (BSE). We support
researches that have proven that the breast
self-examination alone is not a useful tool
to decrease the mortality of breast cancer.
But we cannot deny its importance as one
more tool for the early detection. In this
day and age when we are advocating for
everybody to be more responsible and
proactive to their own health how can we
tell women not to do breast
self-examination. The article claims that
BSE would cause more anxiety and that it
leads to unnecessary procedures.
We advocate in favor of BSE because we teach
it as a way for a woman to know her normal
breast, to be familiar with her normal
breast tissue and then be aware of any
change and go for professional assistance
earlier.
This report was very important to remind us
that we need to continue to engage in
discussion with our care providers. We hope
that the researchers will continue pursuing
their studies to better understand the
biology of breast cancer and to find a cure
for this disease. In the meantime they need
to constantly find better solutions to
enhance the quality of the life of the
survivors.