Myth: “Mammograms are early detection” 2

Hello bOOb blogettes:

Under the weather here so I’m going to re-post one of the earlier blogs on breast cancer “Early Detection” that some of you late-joiners may have missed:) Hopefully I’ll get a post out next week during the Holidays then back full-force in the New Year. Enjoy:

Today we’ll look at “early detection,” how it’s defined, and if it’s truly possible for breast cancer (SPOILER ALERT: It is!). First things first: Mammograms are not truly early detection. The soundbite that they are, which is used quite often, is another example of an unfortunate word omission — such was the case with “Mammograms are low [scattered] radiation.” (see the last bOObs blog)

Here’s how the soundbite should actually be conveyed: “Mammograms are early [stage] detection.”

Think about it. When a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer (BC) following a mammography screening and a biopsy, the tumor is so advanced it’s already deserved of a stage. 

DCIS (see previous blog on this) Stage 0 — that’s a zero — is defined as a pre-cancer and is the only stage defined as “noninvasive” cancer. So, in other words, understand that all other stages are defined as “invasive” cancers. Further, Stages 0 and 1A are the only stages that have not reached the lymph nodes. All other tumors staged 1B and higher have cancer cells that have already spread to the lymph nodes and could likely end up in an organ — or unfortunately already have.

The research I’ve done uncovered this, which really shocked me: Once a tumor is large enough to be detected on a mammogram, it’s already been in the breast for two to ten years. 

Yikes!

Is this how we want “early detection” to be defined in breast cancer screening?  Noooooo, of course not!

Women deserve better than this. That brings me to the excellent yet underutilized BC screening tool of thermography. 

I’ll be bOOb-blogging more about thermography in the near future, but suffice to say it could truly be considered an early detection tool and, as one doctor said to me, “a test of prevention.”

Here’s why: Cancer is an inflammatory disease, as are most (if not all) chronic diseases. Thermography is capable of picking up inflammation in the breast before a tumor forms because it’s a test of physiology versus a test of anatomy (such as mammography, ultrasound, and MRI). 

Thermography is a non-invasive, non-radiative test that does not compress the breast or hurt in any way. Thermograms generally take about 20 min. to conduct and are simply photos taken of the breasts by an infrared camera, which seeks out inflammation exhibited by heat in the breast.

I love this test and, as of five years ago, now get thermography in conjunction with ultrasound once a year instead of mammography. The last mammogram I underwent, I remember standing there with my breast in a vice grip that was extremely painful, at the same time getting my breasts shot up with radiation, and I thought, What the heck am I doing????

The only problem with thermography is it’s generally not covered by insurance, even though it’s been approved by the U.S. FDA as an adjunctive tool to mammography — which means if you have any chance of getting it covered by something like a supplementary insurance plan (e.g., AFLAC), you have to get the mammogram first.

In contrast, many times ultrasound (also FDA-approved as an adjunctive tool) is usually paid for by regular insurance if the woman has gotten her mammogram first, has very dense breasts, and/or something abnormal is found on the mammogram. 

Why aren’t thermograms covered by insurance, you ask?  We’ll look into this topic in a later bOOb blog, but a quick and partial answer is that it hasn’t undergone a well-conducted clinical trial set against today’s primary screening tool of mammography…yet.

This needs to change! Together we can do this. Watch this space…:)

[Thanks to Dr. Galina Migalko of Universal Medical Imaging in Burbank, CA, and the late Dr. Ben Johnson for introducing me to thermography and ultrasound]

Blog at you soon, thanks for reading and helping to spread the word! (Please see the “share” links below).

Stay healthy and Happy Holidays,

Megan

waymarkproductions.com