How MRI Scans Find Breast Cancers Like Christina Applegate's

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rb6pJr I bookmarked this link. Thank you for good job!

Ms Kotz,

Unless you are a survivor or doctor - do not attempt to write about a subject that you know little about. I had none of the categories that you suggested, yet at 41 I was diagnosised with stage two breast cancer. I thank my doctors for allowing yearly mammograms since I was 35. The all clear mammogram before my dianosis was only seven months apart.

I was just diagnosised with a second breast cancer (nine years later). Also thanks to the mammogram and a very dilagent radiologist.

This last time I went through mammograms, ultrasounds, MRI and finally PEM scan. The PEM scan is new on the scene. Better than the MRI and can tell without a biopsy if you have cancer. Unfortunately insurances still require a tissue biopsy if you plan to have a mastectomy.

Bottom line - Get your mammogram. Do it even if you are not likely to have cancer. Do it even if you are younger than 40. Do it, even if you have a false positive - better that than dead. Just do it.

And frankly as I have told all my friends at least I will have perky breasts the rest of my life while theirs are sagging.

Age of onsent

Cory is right. Breast cancer isn't "uncommon" in women under fifty. It's just not AS common.

I applaud Applegate's physician. This game of "playing the statistics," of not doing tests because of age (young or old) actually says that we are willing to sacrifice those people who don't follow the statistical pattern. We just saw it today in another way; now they want to deny PSA tests to older men because SOMETIMES prostate grows slowly. Well, it didn't grow slowly in my father, who was 69 -- not all that far from 75 -- when he died of prostate cancer. I guarantee you he would have preferred a PSA and a biopsy. Then he would have found out that although SOME old men can play "wait and see," he needed to treat his aggressively. My BIL also had an aggressive type of prostate cancer that was caught in time, and I guarantee you that had he been 75 he still would prefer to live.

Statistics tall us about groups of people -- not individuals. Thank goodness Applegate is around to show us to look at ourselves as individuals and not statistics.

By the way, they caught Applegate's cancer early, which is really important in younger women in particular.

we deserve more details

It would be very helpful if Applegate would allow her physicians to come forward and describe the process. It does seem odd that her cancer was detected via MRI and I too wondered if there wasn't something else to the story. Rather than allow misinformation to be propagated, the docs should explain. Applegate went public, there should be no reason why the specifics can't be revealed

Women under 50

I've known several people who have gotten brest cancer under 50.

It cant be that uncommon.

My boyfriends aunt is in her late 40's-very early 50's and just had to have surgery to remove the cancer.

MRI to detect breast cancer in dense breasts

My pre-invasive cancer was found incidental to a mamogram and two ultrasounds. I am very fortunate that it was found nonetheless. I am one of those mid 40's woman with very dense breast that unless I was high risk, insurance companies wouldn't cover an MRI. Of course, once it was discovered my status changed to high risk and to make sure the they hadn't missed anything else, I was then approved to have an MRI of both breast. I think it is very important that dense breast woman be very cognisant of this risk. What I don't understand is why Insurance Companies rather pay for a bunch of "other" tests when if they just do an MRI to begin with, there would be a lot less expensive treatments in the long run if the cancer is cought at an early stage, not to mention the lives that would be saved.

The author is correct regarding most common age at diagnosis

"The American Cancer Society's records for 2000-2004 show that 95% of new cases and 97% of breast cancer deaths happened in women age 40 and older and the median age at diagnosis was 61."

Source: WEBMD

don't trust standard mamogram

Even though we pay $12K/yr for Kaiser, my wife(57) was diagnosed with suspicious mamo after nothing there 11 months prior, having dense breast tissue. They have digital ones now, ask for it. They followed w/ sonogram, then needle biopsy, most doctors are pushing back on MRIs because the cost is $4500, they do NOT want it standard screening. MRIs show ALL KINDS OF FALSE POSITIVES. It can save your life, but be prepared to needle biopsy(they use the MRI as a templete) all suspicious spots, it shows them all. Fibrocystic tissue, they all show up, all the subsequent biopsies have Kaiser (I heard this directly from the pathologist)really pushing back on MRIs. Kaiser agreed to do a MRI only after finding " lobular carcinoma present", lobular is more aggressive, where the cancer has spread beyond the duct into the lobe/lobe tissue, it puts out "fingers" that are impossible to see on any mammogram, again... the MRI shows the exact margin of suspicious carcinoma, so when she had a second lumpectomy, we knew they needed another .8 millimeter to be completely safe. As it turned out, the excised tissue did not show any cancer, meaning the margin came right to the ink line (the line the surgeon draws on the breast before surgery) In hindsight, it's stage 2B, she had close to 50 grams of tissue removed the 2nd time, because lobular requires a bigger margin, then chemo and radiation. Struggling with lymphadema in her arm now, the result of removing the 4 armpit lymph nodes (Sentinel had .3mm cancer), resulting scar tissue causes lymph to drain down the arm, lasting a lifetime, we are dealing with it, she's ordering a sleeve. Don't let them do a radiation boost to the nodes at the end, without studying/discussing it, studies show it can result in more cases of lymphadema. Hope this helps.

breast cancer age of onset

actually, breast cancer in women under the age of 50 is not at all uncommon.....i am a survivor and was diagnosed under that age, as were many women i know. My doctors treat many women from late 30s upward...

Breast cancer in young women

Next to accidental death and homicide, breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women of childbearing age. Younger women with breast cancer are more likely to die from their disease compared to older women.

Younger women are more commonly diagnosed with advanced disease compared to older women. For example, one out of every three women less than 40 years old will have positive lymph nodes at the time of diagnosis compared to only one out of every ten women greater than 70 years of age at diagnosis.

Younger women are more likely to be diagnosed with more aggressive tumor types.

Breast cancer treatment often has a greater impact on the quality of life of younger women. For example

* younger women are more likely to receive chemotherapy than older women

* younger women often have children in the house to care for during treatment

* infertility can result secondary to chemotherapy

* sexual dysfunction secondary to chemotherapy is more common in younger women

* depression occurs more frequently in younger women with breast cancer, than in older women

* younger women worry about what will happen to their children if they don't survive

There are many questions left unanswered in the treatment of breast cancer in younger women. For example, we do not really know how much chemotherapy for breast cancer impacts fertility. In fact, there is very little data on whether or not if it is even safe to get pregnant after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Given the fact that tens of thousands of women of reproductive age are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and that women are increasingly postponing childbearing, finding answers to these questions and raising the awareness of younger women and physicians about breast cancer in younger women should be a national priority.

www.breastcure.com