Mrs. Edwards on mammograms...

[RobinP]

I applaud Mrs. Edwards for coming out and stating that her suggestion for cancer prevention is to get your (yearly) mammograms, something that she neglected to do. However,I fear that people will think that mammograms are a tell all for early diagnosis, which they are not. Mammograms are NOT 100% effective at detecting cancer early. From what I understand, mammograms are only 10-15% effective in detecting cancer in women that are menopausal and ONLY 70% effective in detecting cancer in premenopausal women due to hormonally denser breasts. Unitl something better than mammography comes along, mammography with Self Breast Exams and biopsy of all suspicous lumps are necesaary for early breast cancer detection. I can't tell you how many times I have read of patient and physician related bc delayed diagnosis due to overreliance on mammography. That's right even physicians overrely on mammograms, leading to a misdiagnosis of a breast mass, and that's one of the DARK SIDEs OF MAMMOGRAMS. What every woman needs for early detection of breast cancer is not just yearly mammograms, but self breast exams with biopsy of suspcious lumps and removal, or at least re-biopsy, of persistent and enlarging masses.