Dr. Tchaiko Parris, director of breast imaging at Breastlink Temecula Valley, talks about breast cancer screening, breast cancer risk factors, breast cancer symptoms, and the limits of mammography.
Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer in women, the second leading cause of cancer death in women, and the leading cause of death in women 35-54. One in eight women will be diagnosed sometime in their life.
Though white women are most likely to develop the disease, black women are more likely to die from it because they're normally diagnosed with more advanced cancers. Doctors don’t fully understand the reasons for this gap. It may be cultural, economic, or educational – black women may not be as familiar with breast cancer symptoms.
The biggest risk factors for breast cancer are being a woman and getting older. Other risk factors out of your control are age of first menstruation, age of menopause, genes, a family history of breast cancer, and a biopsy showing atypical changes. Risk factors you can control are your alcohol intake, your weight, the number of children you have, when you have children, or whether you decide to go on hormone replacement or take birth control. (The risk from birth control is very small.) A large amount of radiation exposure is also a risk factor.
There are three main screening methods for healthy women. The first is self-breast exam, which Dr. Parris encourages all her patients to perform throughout their lives. The best way to spot changes in your breast is to familiarize yourself with them. The second is clinical breast exam, which should be performed every three years from 20-39 and every year after age 40. The third is screening mammograms. These should begin at age 40 be repeated every year.
Women with a first-degree relative (mother or sister) who developed breast cancer should begin screenings ten years before the age when their relatives were first diagnosed. For example, if your mother developed breast cancer at age 35, you should begin screening at age 25.
There is a controversy in mammography. The US Preventative Services Task Force has changed its recommendations and is telling women to come in at age 50 and get mammograms every 2 years. They recommend patients stop mammograms at age 74 and stop performing self-breast exams. Some breast cancer organizations have supported these new changes, but Breastlink and Dr. Parris do not. They still recommend women start yearly mammograms at age 40 and continue them indefinitely. They also encourage women to perform self-exams. Breastlink encourages early mammograms because breast cancer screening works. It has reduced breast cancer mortality by 30 percent.
A mammogram is an X-ray picture of the breast. Many women are worried about the amount of radiation they’re exposed to during a mammogram, but it’s very small. You’d be exposed to the same amount of radiation flying from LA to New York.
There are two types of mammograms: screening mammograms and diagnostic mammograms. Screening mammograms are used on patients who don’t have any breast cancer symptoms. Doctors use it to identify abnormalities that could be cancer. A diagnostic mammogram is used on patients who have breast cancer symptoms or who had an abnormality on a screening mammogram. Doctors use them to decide whether a woman has cancer or not.
The most common breast cancer symptoms are: lumps or thickening of the breast, nipple discharge, inverted nipples, changes in the breast’s color or appearance, and redness or pitting of the skin.
The density of a woman’s breast affects how easy it is to detect breast cancer using a mammogram. Breasts are made of fat, fibrous tissue, and glandular tissue. Breasts with high levels of fibrous and glandular tissue are dense. Dense tissue and cancer both show up white on a mammogram, which makes it hard to differentiate them.
To learn more about Breastlink and breast cancer, visit our website: www.breastlink.com
