Breastcancer diagnosis

august 11 2007

I'm very happy with the developments in breast cancer diagnostics.

Mammograms are used worldwise as screeningtools, and they're saving lots of lives, but not all breastgrowths are discovered, so there are still woman who discover their cancer too late.

I knew that intensive MRI studies were conducted, part of it here at our own university, but it's always up to the researcher to inform the media.

They did.

Ofcourse one has to keep in mind that these are the first results of studies and that it takes quite some time to confirm them and to get enough funds to start using MRI's as a screeningtool.

But the results were interesting enough to present them to the world.

MRI's are far better than mammograms (90% vs 56%) in detecting nonmalignant tumors called ductal carcinoma in-situ, or DCIS.
These are growths that can turn into cancer, so using MRI is not only saving lives, it's also a means to prevent having cells in your body that can turn into life threatening danger.

As there are far more other kinds of growths and cancers, it's important that mammograms are not abandoned.

Before women are screened with MRI too, many issues need to be solved.
MRI's find all sorts of growths, some are not dangerous at all, and never will be.
MRI can't be used for all cancers, so patientgroups need to be defined and diagnosed in other ways.
MRI scans are very expensive. $1,000 to $1,500 per scan.

So untill more research is conducted we women have to go through the breastflattening experience if we want to stay on top of what our bodies do.