Ultrasounds for dense breasts????

voraciousreader · December 2014

Not so fast!😫

http://www.wcax.com/story/27576699/new-uvm-study-l...

Oy!

Meadow · December 2014

I disagree. what do you think VR

daisylover · December 2014

This makes me sad. Neither of my cancer tumors was revealed by mammogram, or 3D mammo. One was not even seen by ultrasound or MRI, though. No false positives here! It was discovered only by prophylactic MX. Lobular hiding in dense breasts... The US ordered by my PCP showed the original cancer which had fortunately been palpable. Not offering US for dense breasts is a distinct disadvantage for lobular...

voraciousreader · December 2014

I'm floored!

After picking my self up...the only thing that comforts me is that it is "only one study." I'm not really that surprised, because there has always been controversy about what to do with the knowledge of knowing one has dense breasts. Likewise, we all know that all types of imaging come with the risk of false negative and false positive....sooooo....what do I really think? I think all types of population based screening using imaging is going to be replaced with blood tests that will better identify cancer....of course we will still have imaging...but that will be mostly used for diagnostics and surgical treatment decisions. I think this study confirms the need for better tools. Until then, if a woman has dense breasts, she needs to be vigilant.

Meadow · December 2014

Daisy mine too was discovered by ultrasound. I had a "clean" mammo 6 mo before.

voraciousreader · December 2014

Me too! Mammo missed my tumor which everyone felt! Ultrasound found it and MRI found a drop of DCIS WHICH MAMMO AND ULTRASOUND BOTH MISSED! Sorry for yelling!

Chloesmom · December 2014

Mammo said my ILC was .85 cm. MRI said it was 1.5. Waiting to see what post op biopsy says it really is.

"Good" breast hurts the same way as evil one. US and MRI says it's ok but bet a box of donuts the biopsy will disagree. This ILC likes to lurk in the shadows. Will report back when I get the results

Anonymous · December 2014

I found a lump in '99 and had an excisional biopsy.

I found two lumps last July and had a lumpectomy.

I found two more lumps after surgery, one needing a core biopsy, the other just had an ultrasound.

Out of those five lumps, zero was caught my mammogram.

In fact, after knowing the lumps were there, the mammogram came back clean.

This year I refused my mammogram. It turned into this big huge deal and they denied my ultrasound.

When they realized that didn't make me agree to a mammogram, they gave me a bilateral ultrasound.

It's been my experience, anything other than "standard of care" is frowned upon - no matter your history.

I have dense breasts.

voraciousreader · December 2014

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2014/...

Now...another study.....contradicting the first study!

voraciousreader · December 2014

kay....you are raising a critically important issue with respect to informing people if they have dense breasts...this speaks to an even larger issue...beside the issue with respect to the quality of the technicians skills...which in and of itself is a big issue....the larger issue is...how much info is useful and how much leads to over diagnosis? And, how much of the info leads to a false sense of security?

These are issues that bioethicists struggle with every day.

voraciousreader · December 2014

kay...you bring up again...a larger issue and that is...how do we offer equal healthcare to all?

I donate to a wonderful charity...Angel Flight NE

http://www.angelflightne.org

I've been acutely aware for decades of the lopsided delivery of care in the States. Angel flights helps gets critically ill patients to where they need to go to get care.

Below is a great study...Recall how I'm always babbling about using blood markers to identify cancer....well...here is another study.....

http://www.hngn.com/articles/52318/20141209/breast...

I see in the not so distant future less of a need for all of the screening imaging...