Jy­oti De­onar­ine

The year 2020 has taught us that ob­sta­cles can al­ways come our way, but it is how we cope and ma­noeu­vre around them that mat­ters. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic locked us away from our fam­i­ly and friends, and we even lost some along the way.

Oc­to­ber has al­ways been deemed breast can­cer aware­ness month, but as breast care spe­cial­ists we have to spread the word and re­mind you that you need to have your an­nu­al screen­ing sched­uled.

Breast can­cer con­tin­ues to be one of the lead­ing can­cers af­fect­ing both men and women glob­al­ly. The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion has in­di­cat­ed that one in eight women will de­vel­op breast can­cer. So why wait to be the one?

The pan­dem­ic has caused many peo­ple to fall off their rou­tine and I want to re­mind you about get­ting back on track with your breast screen­ing and any oth­er screen­ings ne­glect­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Many peo­ple have re­turned to their out­door and group ac­tiv­i­ties in­clu­sive of Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Walks and oth­er char­i­ta­ble events dur­ing the Pink Month of Oc­to­ber.

Many peo­ple de­layed their test­ing and are still afraid to get their checks done. This is an ap­peal to you, it is safe to re­turn to rou­tine screen­ing, which should not have been stopped in the first in­stance, so go and book your ap­point­ment.

Breast can­cer is the most com­mon can­cer in women world­wide and is deemed the sec­ond most com­mon can­cer over­all. Al­though breast can­cer screen­ing can­not pre­vent breast can­cer, it can help de­tect breast can­cer ear­ly, when it is eas­i­er to treat. Breast can­cer screen­ing means check­ing a woman’s breasts for can­cer be­fore there are any signs or symp­toms of the dis­ease, util­is­ing a com­bi­na­tion of var­i­ous imag­ing tools and clin­i­cal as­sess­ments to find the dis­ease be­fore symp­toms be­gin such as pain, lumps and dis­charges. It is a way of find­ing can­cer when it is too small to feel or see with the naked eye.

Our breasts are made up of var­i­ous com­po­nents; fat, con­nec­tive tis­sue and thou­sands of tiny glands called lob­ules, which pro­duce milk which is de­liv­ered to the nip­ple through tiny tubes called ducts. Most women who get breast can­cer (one out of eight) are gen­er­al­ly over the age of 50, but younger women, and in rare cas­es, men, can al­so get breast can­cer. If caught and treat­ed ear­ly enough, breast can­cer can be pre­vent­ed from spread­ing to oth­er parts of the body.

Screen­ing in­volves test­ing “healthy peo­ple” for signs of de­vel­op­ing breast can­cer–they are peo­ple who are not dis­play­ing any is­sues with their breasts. Peo­ple who are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing symp­toms will be cat­e­gorised as di­ag­nos­tic as­sess­ment and not screen­ing as­sess­ment, and they are to seek im­me­di­ate med­ical at­ten­tion once an is­sue aris­es with their breasts. Breast can­cer screen­ing is rec­om­mend­ed to be per­formed an­nu­al­ly.

Types of breast can­cer screen­ing tests:

Breast self-aware­ness/ex­am­i­na­tion: you are re­spon­si­ble for be­ing fa­mil­iar with your breasts and the way they feel and look. Any changes no­ticed dur­ing this breast self-ex­am should be re­port­ed to your breast physi­cian or breast spe­cial­ist as they can then guide you through the clin­i­cal process and di­ag­nos­tic as­sess­ment.

Clin­i­cal breast ex­am­i­na­tion: This is where the doc­tor or breast care nurse care­ful­ly ex­am­ines the breast and chest area in­clu­sive of the un­der­arm area for any lumps or skin changes.

Mam­mog­ra­phy: A mam­mo­gram is an x-ray of the breast, it is one of the best ways to find breast can­cer ear­ly, es­pe­cial­ly since we have avail­able dig­i­tal mam­mog­ra­phy at our cen­tre. Dig­i­tal mam­mog­ra­phy is the pain­less form of mam­mo­grams, pro­vid­ing in­creased im­age de­tail and in­creas­ing the chances of de­tect­ing can­cer at very ear­ly stages, years be­fore phys­i­cal symp­toms de­vel­op.

Ul­tra­sonog­ra­phy: An ul­tra­sound us­es sound waves to cre­ate pic­tures in­side the breast. This imag­ing tool works in con­junc­tion with mam­mog­ra­phy and helps de­ter­mine the na­ture of le­sions seen in the breast, whether they are sol­id or flu­id filled.

Breast MRI (mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing): This utilis­es a pow­er­ful mag­net­ic field to pro­duce pic­tures of the breast. MRI is used col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with both mam­mog­ra­phy and breast ul­tra­sound.

There­fore, it is com­mon­ly sug­gest­ed to have a com­pre­hen­sive breast screen­ing which should en­tail hav­ing a phys­i­cal breast ex­am, dig­i­tal mam­mo­gram and breast ul­tra­sound to en­sure all as­pects of breast tis­sue are as­sessed. For the many ladies who still ask why they should do both a dig­i­tal mam­mo­gram and breast ul­tra­sound, it is sim­ply be­cause there are some things which can be seen on mam­mog­ra­phy but not ul­tra­sound and vice ver­sa. Un­der the scruti­ny of both imag­ing modal­i­ties be­ing per­formed an­nu­al­ly, breast can­cer can be de­tect­ed at an ear­li­er stage which leads to a bet­ter prog­no­sis and more treat­ment op­tions.

Jy­oti De­onar­ine (RR)

Mam­mo­g­ra­ph­er

Pink Hi­bis­cus Breast Health Spe­cial­ists

Adam Smith Square, Wood­brook.