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Imaging Technology A Key To Diagnosis

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MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: October 12, 2008

SEBRING - With data showing that about one in every eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime, screening for the disease should be a top health priority.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women and is the second-leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer - and is the leading cause of cancer death among women ages 35 to 54.

Along with monthly self-breast examinations, annual mammograms are recommended to detect any possible areas of concern.

Board Certified Diagnostic Radiologist Dr. David Rippe said medical screening for breast disease always begins with a mammography.

Speaking at Florida Hospital Heartland Division's Seascape Imaging in south Sebring, Rippe said typically women should have annual mammograms starting at age 40.

High-risk woman, those with a strong history of breast cancer in the family, should start having mammograms at 30 years of age.

Mammography, whether it's digital or film screen, is an X-ray type of test, Rippe said. The picture is formed from X-rays.

A digital (computer-based) system is better and more readily available for comparison, he said. It is very important to have comparison mammograms, because this allows doctors to detect more subtle areas of any interval change.

Ultrasound is used as a supplementary imaging technique to mammography.

"We may find a suspicious area or area of interest on the mammogram that needs to be evaluated further," Rippe said. That's where ultrasound is best used.

When a mammogram detects a small nodule or cyst in the breast, ultrasound is able to confirm whether or not it is a cyst, he said. If in fact it is a cyst that is very helpful to know because a cyst is not cancer and will not become cancerous.

Breast MRI magnetic resonance imaging is used in different circumstances.

Rippe said a breast MRI may be called for if there's not enough information on the mammogram or ultra sound to be able to tell what should happen next with the patient.

An MRI can also be used to evaluate breast cancer.

After a biopsy shows that a woman has breast cancer, the breast MRI can be used to define the extent of the cancer and to detect if there is cancer in the other breast. A woman who has cancer in one breast is more likely to have cancer in the other breast compared to likelihood of cancer in the general population.

For women with a genetic predisposition for breast cancer, in some situations it is very useful to use MRI to screen those individuals, Rippe said.

"Remember, mammography doesn't cure breast cancer, it is a diagnostic test," he said. Mammography significantly reduces the number of women dying of cancer.

The way it does that is by finding these cancers when they are small and confined only to the breast tissue, Rippe said.

"This is the way you save a woman's life with breast cancer, you find it early," he said. Putting off the mammogram will decrease a woman's chances of early detection of any possible breast cancer.

A mammogram is easy to do; it's quick; it's convenient, Rippe said.

"We have a wonderful staff of technologists who are very experienced," he added.

Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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