Consider radiation therapy that takes days not weeks
For women with breast cancer who need to have radiation in addition to or instead of surgery, the prospect of enduring radiation treatments for 6 weeks can seem like forever. Now there are new shorter course radiation treatments that deliver effective, high doses of radiation in a much shorter time frame.
Yearly Fearly Mammograms
I have a mammogram every year because I’m at high risk for breast cancer. As many of you know my mom had breast cancer when she was 32. I was 5 at the time and remember being cared for by relatives as she recovered.
Fortunately, she recovered after having a radical Halstead mastectomy and was free from Breast cancer for the rest of her life. I’m fairly certain that I chose nursing as a profession in small part because of the glowing way she described the nurses who cared for her. Growing up with the knowledge that there were many women in my mom’s family with breast cancer, including my own mother who found a small hard lump in the shower in her early 30’s absolutely adds to my anxiety every spring when I have my annual mammogram.
Screening for Breast cancer with mammograms is an area of health care where it seems there’s a continual stream of contradictory guidelines. First we hear that it’s important to have mammograms every year and as women, we dutifully sign up and get ourselves squished like thin Swedish pancakes. Annual mammograms have saved countless lives and detected tiny breast cancers that are too small to feel.
Should you examine your own breasts?
A recent study calls into question the wisdom or necessity of doing Breast Self Exams. When I read these I’m always a little worried, as sometimes the relevant and pertinent information is lost in the fine print at the bottom. It was found that even though recommended, a monthly self exam may do more harm than good in certain women in certain age groups. Self exams done often led to an increased number of benign and normal lesions being found, which resulted in more intervention and biopsies. (more…)
