Jy­oti Priya De­onar­ine

Screen­ing for breast can­cer means look­ing for signs of breast can­cer in all women, even if they have no symp­toms. The goal of screen­ing is to catch can­cers ear­ly. Ear­ly-stage can­cers are eas­i­er to treat than lat­er-stage can­cers, and the chance of sur­vival is high­er. Rou­tine screen­ing for breast can­cer low­ers one’s risk of dy­ing of breast can­cer.

Every day at Pink Hi­bis­cus Breast Health Spe­cial­ist Cen­tre many pa­tients are booked to have their Breast Screen­ing done, we are al­ways bom­bard­ed by calls from pa­tients -

“How to pre­pare for a Mam­mo­gram?”

To pre­pare for a mam­mo­gram on­ly takes a few sim­ple steps and a few help­ful tips :-

When is the right time to sched­ule your ap­point­ment?

Your breast screen­ing should be sched­uled when your breasts are least ten­der; for women who are not in­to menopause, this is usu­al­ly dur­ing the week af­ter your men­stru­al pe­ri­od.

Can I have a mam­mo­gram if I am breast­feed­ing?

Lac­tat­ing breasts tend to be dense be­cause they are filled with milk which can make in­ter­pret­ing mam­mo­grams more dif­fi­cult. There­fore it is rec­om­mend­ed for women to com­plete­ly fin­ish lac­tat­ing be­fore hav­ing their mam­mo­grams done. If a pa­tient is symp­to­matic they can still be seen by a physi­cian and a breast ul­tra­sound can be per­formed in the in­ter­im.

What should I bring?

It is al­ways ad­vis­able for pa­tients to walk with their pre­vi­ous imag­ing and re­ports (mam­mo­grams and breast ul­tra­sounds) for a com­par­a­tive study to be per­formed and any changes can be not­ed.

What can I wear?

Pa­tients are ad­vised to wear a two-piece out­fit, so it’s eas­i­er to re­move your top and bra for your screen­ing ex­am­i­na­tion.

On the day of the ex­am, pa­tients are ad­vised to avoid us­ing :-

Pow­der

Lo­tions

Creams

Per­fumes

De­odor­ants un­der their arms, breast and chest area. Some pa­tients ask “why?”. It is sim­ply be­cause cer­tain prod­ucts con­tain mi­cro­scop­ic ma­te­ri­als and par­ti­cles which can mim­ic mi­cro­cal­ci­fi­ca­tions (specks of cal­ci­um) on a mam­mo­gram. In a pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle men­tion was made that the mor­phol­o­gy of cal­ci­fi­ca­tions is an im­por­tant fac­tor in de­cid­ing whether they are typ­i­cal­ly be­nign or not, there­fore by not ap­ply­ing these prod­ucts it re­duces this false neg­a­tive re­port and there is no con­fu­sion by the ra­di­ol­o­gist re­port­ing on the im­ages.

To en­sure this is done, cleans­ing wipes are pro­vid­ed to re­move de­odor­ant or any oth­er prod­ucts ap­plied to the skin in the area of ex­am­i­na­tion.

Can I eat?

Yes! You can ab­solute­ly have your reg­u­lar meals when at­tend­ing your breast screen­ing ap­point­ment.

So there you have it, some sim­ple tips to guide you with your prepa­ra­tion when you have sched­uled your breast screen­ing ap­point­ment.

Don’t be afraid of a mam­mo­gram. If you know what will hap­pen and how to get your­self ready for the pro­ce­dure, your fears will ease. It’s nor­mal to feel anx­ious, but there’s no need to be so afraid that you put off the process. A mam­mo­gram can save your life.

Jy­oti De­onar­ine (RR)

Mam­mo­g­ra­ph­er

Pink Hi­bis­cus Breast Health Spe­cial­ists