Breast cancer screening

by Dr Sabrina
Sassine

Getting regular screening tests is the most reliable way to detect breast cancer. Screening is a set of tests or examinations used to find disease in people who don’t have any symptoms. The benefit of screening is to detect possible cancer at an earlier stage when it is easier to treat.

Breast cancer that’s detected in the early stages, when it’s small and has not started spreading, is easier to treat successfully.

Yearly clinical exams with your doctor may be beneficial however, physical examination plays a minor role in screening for breast cancer while Breast Self Exams play an even smaller role. Screening is done to detect breast cancer before you can feel a lump or any other physical symptoms.

Screening is mainly done by mammography. Mammography are x rays of the breast. Screening according to American Cancer Society women between 40-44 years of age are encouraged to start screening with mammogram every year. Those 45-54 should get a mammogram every year. Those 55 or older can continue yearly mammography or mammography every 2 years and screening should continue as long as the woman is in good health and is expected to live at least 10 more years.

Ultrasounds are not typically used to screen for breast cancer however it can be useful in further examining breast lumps that are discovered as well as to help doctors perform biopsies.

For women who are at high risk of developing breast cancer, screening using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is also used along with mammography.

Breast MRI are not recommended as a screening tool by itself. It may help to detect some cancers that are not seen on mammography but may also miss some cancers that mammography would detect. MRI can also be used to determine size and extent of an already diagnosed breast cancer. Women who are at high risk for breast cancer should get a breast MRI and a mammogram every year usually starting at age 30.

High risk women include those who had radiation therapy to the chest when they were between the ages of 10 and 30 years; those who have known BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 gene mutation or those with a first degree family member (parent, brother, sister or child) with the gene mutation history of breast cancer.