Recently the news has been overloaded with information and opinions over women’s health and mortality as it relates to the use of mammography and self breast exams. With all of this information it is hard to find out what women should do to care for their body.

What are the guidelines to follow? Recent studies have documented that there is little to no link between self breast exams, mammograms and the actual mortality rate of women with breast cancer. In this article we will focus not on the answer to that enormous question, but on the ambiguity behind that statement.

It has been the standard provided by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) that women 40 or older have a mammogram with or without a clinical breast exam every 1-2 years to maintain proper breast health. This recommendation was based on two factors. (1) Clinical studies in women 50-69 demonstrated a 30% reduction in the breast cancer mortality rate when screened annually or biannually (http://www.acpm.org/breast.htm) and (2) the assumption that a women’s breast tissue at the age of 40 would yield similar results.

Unfortunately a similar correlation has yet to be found, prompting the new assertion that a women should wait until 50 to have her first mammogram. But is this right? Can one assume tissue changes occur in every woman at a specific age? And why is it important to this debate? Read the rest of this entry »

Medical researchers now recommend not only mammograms but also MRI screening for women who are at high risk of developing breast cancer.

The MRI is not a substitute for a mammogram, since mammograms still show a few things, such as tiny calcifications, that MRI does not.

However, MRI screening for breast cancer is expected to save lives, especially of women with dense breast tissue that tends to hide some cancers in mammograms.