Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Demystifying the diagnosis process and treatment
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- October is breast cancer awareness month. To dispel some of the common misconceptions breast cancer has, let's go through the steps discovering and overcoming breast cancer.
Receiving a cancer diagnosis can be world ending. Because of the taboo around breasts being a sexual organ, many women hold off on getting screened or discussing issues with others.
Screening is the first step and is recommended yearly for women 40 and older, or earlier if you have a family history of breast cancer. Screenings can also be requested if you notice anything during self-examination of your breast.
"You're looking for a lump," says Dr. Linda Tuthill, Medical Director of the Breast Imaging Department at St. Joseph Health. "Doesn't matter if it's hard, doesn't matter if it's soft, doesn't matter if it's painful or not. Any lump is important. So, follow up with that. Any skin changes. Any dimpling of the skin. Is there new redness of the skin? Any changes to the nipple itself? Is the nipple being pulled in?"
Any change, big or small, should be brough to the experts for screening. No matter your age. The purpose of screenings is simple.
"Our goal with breast cancer screening is to find breast cancer at the earliest smallest stage that it can be found," said Tuthill. "Because at that stage the treatment options are great. A lot of times it can be treated with a small surgery, a lot less follow-up treatments. [With] breast cancer screening one of our main goals is to find it before you feel it, before anyone else can feel it and when it's as small as possible."
As awareness expands, so do screening options. The St. Joseph Health System Breast Center is the only place in Indiana offering contrast enhance mammography or CEM. This is where an IV with dye is started to examine women with dense breasts, which makes up around 40 percent of women. This means women no longer must go through the costly, claustrophobic, time consuming process of an MRI to get a thorough mammogram. This is how it works.
"Areas of the breast that would normally have a better vascular supply, so more blood supply will light up," says Tuthill. "And if you do have the denser breast tissue, which makes it difficult for us to always find things on your mammogram, it subtracts out that denser breast tissue."
Screenings can lead to a cancer diagnosis. But Dr. Tuthill says this is not the end for most women.
"When I'm telling them for the first time that I did a biopsy and it's cancer. I've said, 'right now it seems like I'm telling you the worst thing possible, but pretty soon I'm going to see you on the other side of this, and after this, year after year after year, I'm going to see you when you come back for the mammograms.'"
Self-examination, screenings, and proper diagnoses all allow the common but survivable illness to be cured.
Dr. Tuthill wants women and men to know breast cancer is treatable. So, if you feel a lump, or if you are unsure about your health, make an appointment.