{"id":1004,"date":"2008-12-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/condition-breast-cancer-alternating-mammograms-and-mris-may-work-best-for-high-risk-women\/"},"modified":"2008-12-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T00:00:00","slug":"condition-breast-cancer-alternating-mammograms-and-mris-may-work-best-for-high-risk-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/condition-breast-cancer-alternating-mammograms-and-mris-may-work-best-for-high-risk-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Breast Cancer: Alternating Mammograms, MRIs May Be Best for High-Risk Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

Istockphoto\/Health<\/p>\n

By Sally Chew
MONDAY, Dec. 15, 2008 (Health.com) — Women at high risk for breast cancer are generally advised to have one mammogram <\/a>and one magnetic resonance image (MRI)<\/a> scan every year, and they usually schedule them around the same time, along with a hands-on examination by a doctor. The idea is to get three different views of what’s going on in the breasts.<\/p>\n

But what about that 12-month stretch in between when no one’s taking pictures and the woman herself is the only one checking for lumps<\/a>?<\/p>\n

A pilot study presented Saturday at the 31st annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium found that alternating between screening types every six months may turn up cancer earlier than the once-a-year routine—a result that researchers didn’t expect.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t know if by staggering [the imaging], we would pick up more cancer,” says study author Huong Le-Petross, MD, a radiologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston. “We were looking for an option for women to get screenings every six months.”<\/p>\n

The study included 334 women, including 86 high-risk subjects who were alternating methods. Mammograms picked up three of the nine cancers detected in the high-risk women, and they were confirmed by MRIs. Five were picked up on MRI, but didn’t show up on a mammogram, and one tumor was missed by both types of tests. The majority of tumors showed up on an MRI.<\/p>\n

“The MRIs saw the most cancers and the size is small,” and that makes them easier to treat, says Dr. Le-Petross. The superiority of the MRIs was not surprising. The powerful magnetic machines do pick up more abnormalities than the X-rays in mammograms, although they also have a higher chance of a false-positive too—a suspicious spot that a biopsy shows isn’t cancer.<\/p>\n

William Audeh, MD, an oncologist who’s developing a breast-risk-reduction program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles, says Dr. Le-Petross’s study is a timely effort to measure a practice that’s already pretty common in some centers nationwide.<\/p>\n

“It makes sense [for high-risk women] to have some sort of imaging at six months,” says Dr. Audeh. And there’s no question that MRIs are the best tool available for screening in this group, he adds.<\/p>\n

So why stick with both tests? If MRIs do so well, why shouldn’t women at high risk drop mammograms completely and have MRIs twice a year? Dr. Le-Petross would like to compare an MRI-only routine against the current standard and find out for herself.<\/p>\n

However, mammograms do have one special edge over MRIs.<\/p>\n

“The one area that mammograms do pick up is microcalcifications,” notes Dr. Audeh, “and there are some women whose abnormalities are [only] picked up that way.”<\/p>\n

Here’s another reason MRIs can’t go solo just yet: Health insurance only covers one such screening in a year, and MRIs are expensive, at $1,000–$1,500 per image. Insurance companies go by the American Cancer Society guidelines for breast screening, which recommend one mammogram and one MRI a year for women who have a lifetime breast cancer risk of 20% or more.<\/p>\n

The question of who qualifies as high-risk was a dominant theme at the San Antonio conference this year.<\/p>\n

Women are generally in this group if they have multiple cases of breast or ovarian cancer<\/a> in the family, a positive result on the BRCA breast cancer gene-mutation test, a personal history of the disease, or a biopsy showing atypia or lobular carcinoma in situ.<\/p>\n

Regular screenings have been doctors’ most solid advice for women who do fall into the rough definitions of this category. Now there’s this too: Annual visits aren’t the careful, conservative option anymore—they’re the minimum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"