truesurvivor

Dense breasts and diagnosis

Today's Boston Globe had an interesting story about the difficulty of diagnosing cancer in women with dense breast tissue. The conclusion was that women with dense breasts are much more likely to be mis-diagnoses. Sure enough, one of my "Breast Friends" went thru it herself. In the interest of making sure more women are aware of the issue, I include her story:

I can't tell you how many women report that they had "dense breasts'"
> on their mammogram resulting in advanced breast cancer that did not
> show on mammogram.  I am a perfect example of a woman receiving her
> baseline mammo in 1985, told that I have dense breast tissue requiring
> yearly follow-up, finding a breast lump in 1993 that did not show on
> mammogram, having a positive biopsy in 1994 still with a negative
> mammo and finally after the mastectomy ending up with a 6.5 cm tumor,
> 10 positive nodes and Stage 3a invasive ductal carcinoma.  My mammo to
> this day still shows "dense breast tissue".   Unfortunately, the
> technology for mammos was not available in our area or anywhere for
> that matter, no one was concerned about my "dense breast tissue" or
> the resulting breast lump that was "watched" until I was Stage 3a. 
> Even with the new technology of digital mammos, I still have the
> routine mammo at DFCI with the same report each year - "dense breast tissues".
> I'm bringing this article to my oncologist to see if  I can at least
> get a digital mammo.
>  They will probably tell me it does  not matter as I am on aromatase
> inhibitors and my risk of a second brca is low.  Still, I am pissed
> off that my mammo findings had been dismissed since 1985 and here I am
> living with advanced breast cancer - thankful that I am alive to be
> pissed off!  This has to be taken more seriously and more women need
> to demand some action be taken by the medical community.
>
> Now that I have vented about this study and my situation, I'm going to
> pass this along to all the women I know who are "dense breasted women".
>
> Thanks, Katie for your scanning of the news.
> xo, Cynthia

Damn this disease

I was devastated to hear of the death of Molly Ivins this morning from this damn disease. ACS can trumpet the declining death rate all they want but when breast cancer takes someone as talented and wonderful and inspirational as Molly Ivins it makes me furious, and very sad.  The only thing that makes me smile this morning is that I can only imagine the hell that Molly and my friend Crescentia will raise up in heaven.