Breast Screening relates to a topic of health that is still very confusing for many, so in this article, we have given factual details on breast screening and its relational topics like breast imaging, mammograms, mammography test, etc.
As health has been a major concern for many, understanding and finding out about harsh diseases like cancer is very necessary and that is where breast screening comes into play, so read this full article thoroughly.
So what is Breast Screening?
Well understanding the uses and implications and the basic cost of breast screening without understanding the purpose of breast screening will be a waste, so below is the explanation of the purpose of Breast screening.
Breast cancer screening is a special type of medical screening of asymptomatic and healthy women carried out to check if there are any breast cancer issues in an attempt to achieve an earlier diagnosis. Early detection will help improve the basic outcomes and help in cures.
So a large number of medically approved screening tests has been done, including some basic clinical and self-breast exams, mammograms and more, for executing and applying proper breast screening.
A simple clinical or self-breast exam involves feeling the area of the breast for lumps or other abnormalities, this can also be done by checking out breast imaging. The available medical evidence, however, does not support its use in women with a typical risk for breast cancer.
Breast Screening, Mammography and 3-D mammograms
Mammography is highly used in the carrying out universal screening for breast cancer, but it is said to be very controversial as it may not reduce the rate of mortality but at the end of the day can cause harm due to the use of unnecessary treatments and medical procedures.
Many national organizations recommend it for most older women. In Singapore screening mammography for women at normal risk for breast cancer is only recommended every two years in women between the ages of 50 and 74.
Several tools are available to help target breast cancer screening to older women with longer life expectancies.
Similar breast imaging studies can be performed with the help of magnetic resonance imaging but the evidence is lacking.
Earlier, more aggressive, well defined frequent screening is recommended for women who are at particularly high risk of developing the issue of breast cancer, such as those with a confirmed BRCA mutation, those who have previously had breast cancer, and those with a strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer.
Abnormal findings on screening are further investigated by the method of surgically removing a piece of the suspicious lumps (biopsy) to examine them under the microscope. As a matter o fact, Ultrasound may be used to guide the biopsy needle during the procedure. Magnetic resonance imaging is used to guide treatment, but in the end, it is not an established screening method for healthy women.
Below are some basic kinds of mammograms we have listed out for you ;
A screening mammogram is what we call a mammogram done on a woman who has no symptoms.
A diagnostic mammogram refers to a patient who presents with a symptom of some kind
3D mammogram is a newly developed recent technology that is used for the purpose of breast screening and diagnostic cases. It has base implications that make it superior to regular 2D mammograms in women with dense breast tissue. It isn’t 3D in the movie sense. It images the breast in very fine “slices.” These are stacked in a good base structure on top of one another or side by side in the computer. The radiologist scrolls through these structured slices. Any findings outside any given slice are blurred out of the picture. This allows for better image resolution of findings within each slice that may be obscured by overlying dense tissue.
Is Breast Screening Possible with MRI?
Well, many people do say that MRI is a very good tool for finding basic breast anomalies and carrying out basic breast screening. As the term “screening” is usually taken out for the basic purpose of looking at a certain population of people with the use of the basic tools to determine if early signs of something abnormal are present. If so, further testing is then needed to actually diagnose the condition.
Women, especially over a certain age, are considered a high-risk population for breast cancer and therefore breast cancer screening has been recommended for this population. In the absence of any specific risk indicators; i.e. mother and/or daughters with breast cancer, a lump in the breast, previously diagnosed with breast cancer, etc., it would be too expensive to use MRI just as a population screening tool, unless one of these other factors mentioned, exists.
The likelihood of breast cancer in women without one of the existing risk factors is much lower.
Although Mammogram is a much less expensive tool for general breast screening purposes in low-risk women and is combined with the use of ultrasound, also relatively inexpensive, to screen denser breasts or women with recurrent noncancerous (often cystic) lumps.
But insurance companies base their coverage of a test on its average calculated yield vs its cost for a particular disease or the base condition, and the yield is low in asymptomatic, low-risk women, they aren’t generally going to pay the base cost for general screenings using the most expensive tool available. They would pay a lot of money for a very low yield when you consider the millions of women who get mammograms every year, year after year, that show no signs of cancer.
Mammograms VS MRI for Breast Screening
Even mammograms are divided into two categories, mammogram screening singapore and diagnostic mammograms. Diagnostic mammograms are more expensive and scheduled for women with a known or potential problem, such as finding a lump in their breast.
A screening mammogram can be used as a simple diagnostic mammogram during the visit if something suspicious is seen on the screening. Women with high-risk factors, such as mothers and daughters with breast cancer, may get an MRI every month or every other year, with mammograms in between.
So, in the end, if the question was, is MRI good for finding and diagnosing breast cancer? Yes, it is. But MRI is not a good tool to use for routine breast cancer screenings. Yes, it is effective, but generally only for those with higher risk factors than are present during routine screening of populations.
Cost of breast cancer screening
We all regard Cancer like a hardship disease that no one wants to suffer from in his/her life. The fear factor always starts with the diagnosis and the treatment plan to get out of the Cancer diseases factor.
The Cost Factor in Breast Cancer is one that depends on the basis of the growing stage of the probe that one has basically inherited. The best Treatment in the form of the Prognosis in Breast Cancer is available from
- USA
- Dubai
- France
- Singapore
As we told you the Screening stage in the Brest Cancer is the one that let the Doctor identify the kind of anomalies the women in suffering is going through the cancer stages
With the beast cancer in the final stages in terms of the non curing condition, there are very less chances to get to save yourself from the different hard anomalies.
Doctor in that cases in terms of oncologists come up with concept is to include asymptomatic women presenting for routine mammography and breast screening. A screening mammogram must have both craniocaudal (CC) and mediolateral oblique (MLO) views. Failure to include the CC view was defined among the limitations of two of the RCTs of mammography.
The efficacy and base cost of breast screening and detecting tests can be evaluated by: their relationship to prior probability of disease (prevalence), and their relationship to threshold of detection. Blinded, prospective trials evaluating the basic imaging modalities currently used for breast disease.
So if you are choosing Singapore for breast Screening then it will cost you somewhere around 140$ to 150$.
At what age breast screening should be done?
Well according to a doctors advice, when the girl develops breasts she can start doing self examination on a monthly basis (may be at the age of 20+) and it is recommended that it should be necessarily done if she has the breast cancer issue in her family history.
Also it is a myth that if one person has the problem in her family then she will also get it because of the sharing of same gene. Self breast screening are done only to ensure that the person is safe and everything goes normal in her body. There are breast cancer issues found out with the help of these self exams. If it is found at the early stage it can be cured easily with proper treatments.
So how to do this so called Self Breast Examinations????
There is a basic and very simple procedure for doing breast examination and it is not necessary to perform it everyday.
The best time to perform a self breast screening examination is seventh day from your base monthly periods. It is also okay when you are doing it within a period of 3-5 days after monthly cycle starts.
So for the purpose of self breast screening divide your breasts into four equal parts and using fingers, gently press down over the selected area. Dont press it too hard and too much as they are smooth and very sensitive body areas. Find out if you feel any lumps over there. Raise your hands and do it in your under arms area too. Repeat it at the same time every month. The presence of lump will make you feel like rolling the ball with your hands (like when you press and squeeze you will feel like it is coming along with your fingers)
If you feel the lump like a ball just dont panic at all and try to check whether you are feeling any kind of harsh pain over the area. If it pains very harshly then breath down and relax because cancer lumps are said to be completely painless!!! It might be some other base problems related to the issue of hormonal imbalances. In case if you feel painless lump immediately consult the physician without delay. It is also important not only to check the presence of lumps but also to check the size and outline of both the breasts and note down if the nipples turn inward.
If you are above 40+ there is a test called Mammogram that will screen your breasts to check for the tumour.
Is Breast Screening useful in decreasing the mortality rate?
Most of highly acclaimed and well known professional organizations (ACR, ACS) say that breast screening at age 40 and 50 were not enough saved lives to merit the expense. Just take Notice that this statement subtly determines the base value of a human life.
Breast Screening process has saved many lives, but its not enough to warrant the cost. It was interesting to me to watch the furor over this for several reasons. As many people say that they had cancer at age 40 and it would not have been found without mammography and breast screening, so its process is highly useful but it should be exercise from early 30s some experts have claimed.
As a scientist, these are simply unacceptable reasons to determine when screening should start. If you follow this line of reasoning to its conclusion, you are forced to begin screening at the age of the youngest patient ever recorded with breast cancer. I also observed that the patients uniformly credited their survival to mammography, which simply is not true. Certainly a few live as a result of earlier detection by mammography, but that number is not really known.
Mammograms need to start at age 40 and be performed yearly. Women with family history of younger breast cancer should start even earlier than 40. All nationally recognized cancer organizations support this recommendation.
Bad mammography equipment and technique will yield less effective screening. Included in the analysis was a study from Russia that needed to be translated into English. How crazy is that?
The government panel did conclude that some lives would be lost but that it was a fair tradeoff to reduce the side effects of mammography. And what are the side effects they mentioned? Pain from mammograms and biopsies and anxiety during the workup of a less than normal mammogram. As someone who treats a lot of breast cancer patients, this just sounds crazy to me.
If Singapore women follow the USPSTF guidelines, they will likely have close to the same cure rate as with yearly mammograms. But to get that cure, they will also end up with more mastectomies and many more women will need chemotherapy as their cancers will be larger and higher staged. That’s the side effect of following the government’s guidelines. More mastectomies and more chemotherapy.
The government guidelines on mammography and breast screening are curious and there is a lot to dislike about them.
But at the end of the day Breast screening process can be certified as one of the best process that can help curate and minimize the overall breast cancer mortality rate in Singapore.
Thanks for reading, if you have any questions kindly mail us or comment below.