Breast Cancer Early Detection
The Froedtert & MCW health network encourages you to understand the importance of getting screened for breast cancer. Whether it's for you or your loved one, here is why early detection is the best defense.
Breast Cancer Early Detection Survival Rates
The early detection of breast cancer is important because when we find breast cancer early, the survival rates are excellent. For those whose breast cancer is completely contained to one of their breast ducts, the survival rate is really greater than 99%. And even for those people who have invasive breast cancer, but it has yet to spread to their lymph nodes, the survival is still greater than 90%. When we find breast cancer early, we have more options, more treatments and hopefully less invasive treatments available to our patients.
Importance of Mammograms
A mammogram is a specialized X-ray of the breast used to screen for and diagnose breast cancer. It looks for early changes in the tissue that are too small to be felt with physical exam.
We can save the most lives from breast cancer if every woman has a mammogram every year starting at age 40 if they are at average risk. There are some women who are at higher than average risk due to things like a strong family history of breast or ovarian cancer. And some of those women actually need to start screening earlier than age 40. If a woman has concerns about her breast cancer risk, she can talk to her doctor and determine if she needs to start earlier than age 40.
What You Need to Know After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis
When women are diagnosed with breast cancer, they should know a few things. One, they should know about their breast cancer and what they have. So, they should be very inquisitive with their doctors to understand what type of breast cancer they have, what stage it is, what grade it is and specifically ask about the biology of their breast cancer, as this will likely drive much of their treatment.
Breast Cancer Awareness
We participate in initiatives such as the We Are Stronger Together campaign along with the Milwaukee Bucks. This initiative strives to raise awareness about breast cancer and encourage women to be breast aware and to get their mammograms each year. While our team is available to treat all forms of breast cancer, we strive to educate women on their risk factors and, through risk assessment, develop an individualized breast health plan. It's important to know that doctors are looking for very early, subtle changes in the breast tissue. And sometimes they do need a closer look. But after the closer look, most women get good news. In fact, the vast majority of all women who have screening mammograms get good news.
We want women to know that we're here to support them, to make the experience as comfortable as possible so that they can be confident and comfortable making a screening mammogram part of their yearly routine.
