I am postmenopausal with dense breasts that make it difficult to find masses. I had my 6 mo. follow up with my surgeon last week, right after the headline news about breast MRI's detecting contralateral bc. She thought I wanted to talk about that, but, thanks to a post on this board some months ago, I had copied an article from the website of a local hospital (with which her practice is affiliated) discussing a new technology called "Breast Specific Gamma Imaging" or BSGI for short. This is a nuclear medicine test, and is designed to see if the cells in the breast "behave" like cancer cells or normal cells, by measuring their uptake of the radioactive material injected into the blood. My doc was excited and pleased that I was interested in this test, said she liked it very much (well, she IS a surgical oncologist
) and said I could use it for screening alternating with mammograms at 6 month intervals. She said there was a trial in the works to compare BSGI with breast MRI's to determine if one was better than the other. Best news is, the doctor's office said they could get me pre-certified by my insurer for the test, the same as they get me pre-certified for my MUGA's. If this technology is comparable to MRI AND something my insurer will pay for (vs. MRI, which they likely would not) I think it is definitely worth doing. My bc was so "sneaky" that I no longer trust mammography alone to make sure I am disease free.
Hopeful