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Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women worldwide. Each year, approximately 200,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer, and one in nine American women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. Breast cancer can develop at any age, but the risk of developing it increases as women get older. This cancer mostly affects women after the age of 40. Finding breast cancer early often means less surgery and a better chance to get well. Breast cancer has a 95% survival rate when caught at its earliest stage. When breast cancer advances to stage 4, there’s only a 7% chance of survival left.
Breast cancer may be diagnosed before any symptoms occur through screening. Breast cancer screening means checking your breasts for cancer before there are signs or symptoms of the disease. Mammograms, regular self-exams, and clinical breast exams are three main tests used to screen the breasts for cancer. They can help doctors diagnose cancer before it has a chance to spread. As more women do routine self-exams, mammograms and other screening methods improve, more cancers are found early. Breast cancer survival keeps getting better.
Mammograms are a critical screening tool for discovering breast cancer in the early stages. Screening allows radiologists to monitor breast tissue over periods of time. Mammograms can help detect cancer before a woman can feel a lump, as well as cancers too small to feel during a clinical breast exam. Screening mammograms are important for early breast cancer detection. The method can find breast lumps up to two years before they can be felt. Mammograms are recommended for women older than 40, even if they have no signs of breast cancer.
Mammograms are usually done in a certified radiology center or in a clinic set up specially for mammography. During the procedure, which usually takes about 15 minutes, each breast is compressed between two plates, and an X-ray image is made. Screening mammography involves taking x-rays from two views from each breast, typically from above (cranial-caudal view, CC) and from an oblique or angled view (mediolateral-oblique, MLO). Sometimes, mammography can detect changes, lumps, and bumps long before patients and physicians can feel them.
Mammograms help your health care provider diagnose breast problems. They provide the best way to detect breast cancer in its earliest, most treatable stage. Mammograms can also find microcalcifications (tiny deposits of calcium in the breast) that sometimes indicate the presence of breast cancer. However, it is not a perfect tool. Mammograms can miss approximately 10-15 percent of breast cancers. They can detect about 85 percent of breast cancers in women without symptoms. For this reason, it is important for every woman to get a breast exam by her doctor or health care provider close to the time she receives her mammogram. Mammograms can then see into the breast tissue more easily to detect abnormal changes.
About 25 percent of breast tumors are missed in women in their forties, compared to about 10 percent of women older than age 50. Mammograms are clearest when imaging fatty breasts, which are more prevalent in older women. Higher hormone levels cause breasts to be fibrous and hard to read on a mammogram. Mammograms for women over age 65 should be based on the her health and whether or not she has other serious illnesses. Age alone should not be the reason to stop having regular mammograms.
Screening mammography is an important tool for reducing deaths from breast cancer. Screening services are available statewide through doctors’ offices, community-based health centers, hospitals, consultants, radiology sites and labs. The American Cancer Society recommends mammogram screening every year for all women age 40 and older.
Natural Cancer Treatments - Alternative Cancer Treatments
Natural Cancer Treatments - Learn about more than 350 drug-free, alternative cancer treatments.