Skip to main content

Eight Breast Cancer Tests you may have never had

Image
By
Five Breast Tests You May Have Never Had:
Is breast cancer inevitable?
It seems like it is inevitable, for now, 1/7 American women will have it before death. You can catch up on statics by checking out the Am. Cancer Society’s Fact page:
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/CRI_2x.asp?sitearea=LRN&dt=5
 other cancer facts may be at Oncolog stat
It's most important to follow mammogram guidelines and clinical breast exams with your gyno, but after that there may be other tests that would be useful. I highly recommend our patients with risk factors actually get the last test first, a Gail Scale analysis. I also recommend the Halo breast pap. For those with breast symptoms the ultrasound test is important. And you do not necessarily need a genetic counselor to get the breast cancer gene test, it is done by blood draw and the results come with a very clear pamphlet on what they may mean.However, it is important that you have a physician  whom feels comfortable speaking about the tests results with if it's your regular physician.

1. Breast Ultrasound
2. The HALO™ Breast Pap Test
3. BRCA 1/2 Gene Testing
4. CellSearch ® Circulating Tumor Cell (CTC) Test from Veridex
5. MammaPrint(R)
6. Gail Scale Scoring
7. PreOvar (more specific for ovarian cancers)
8. Needle localization
And which ones are right for you? Keep reading!

This list might even challenge your gynos and certainly not all women are candidates for all these tests. Ultrasound: best to check out the cysts or sore spots. Halo Breast pap: you can get it yearly from 25 to 70. It detects precancerous changes which can be addressed before they become cancerous. Gene testing? I prefer to have a personal consultation, and we use several factors to decide if this test is right for you, and more importantly what we may do with the answer. Will you have to go off your birth control pills, change hormone therapy, plan to breast feed, exercise more, etc. If there is cancer in your family (or even ovarian cancer, melanomas, colon cancers, or prostate cancers, speak up) this can be tested, and another sort of "secret that shouldn't be a secret" is that the guidelines for mammograms for the gene carriers are very different, these women need to start having mammograms at 25. Cell searching? Right now just used in patients with metastatic cancer: but yes, it detects cells circulating in our blood stream that are cancerous. And MammaPrint? MammaPrint is another gene test that helps figure treatment for a breast cancer patient. So when you feel a bit like the inevitable is coming....don't be passive, see what can be checked!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comments and questions. WE hope you will buy our book, https://www.gynogab.com/shop This blog is not intended to replace medical care, but is informational only. We hope you will become a follower or visit Womens Health Practice. We offer a variety of unique services including MonaLisa Touch, Coolsculpting, Labiaplasty, and Gynecoloigic Clinical Research Trials. For more information on menopause see

Popular posts from this blog

Passing Your Uterine Lining, Menstrual Period Norms

By
Decidual Cast Periods can be fairly easy, passing some tissue at a time, or off can come the whole lining in one piece called a decidual cast. Generally the lining of the uterus is only 6-8 mm thick at the time of the menstrual period, and it is shed gradually, a few cells at a time. The decidual cast is when the entire lining passes spontaneously.  It's not uncommon, but it usually both uncomfortable, and alarming to some. But us women are designed to have some sort of periods  Or Not? We have to pass tissue each month. Or Not? Are they good for us? Or Not? Do we want them? Or Not? Is this something that is individual? Or Not? It's a complex topic that I will be discussing a lot over my time in this blog. So lets start with basics: How much do we bleed and what are we loosing, and just what was this that the patient passed? And another basic: track your periods, and the Women's Health Practice site http://www.womenshealthpractice.com/media/pdf/menstrual_chart.pdf you...
311 comments
Read more

Post-Endometrial Ablation Syndrome

By
If you have had an endometrial ablation and have developed symptoms of pelvic pain you might have post endometrial ablation syndrome. What is post-endometrial ablation syndrome? It is a constellation of symptoms due to entrapped blood or tissue within a uterus that has previously undergone an endometrial ablation. We are able to diagnose this at Women's Health Practic e but occasionally other conditions are causing similar symptoms. Other complications of endometrial ablation include pregnancy, risks from pre-existing conditions such as a polyp or fibroid, an infection of the uterus, or a pregnancy. If you have had a tubal ligation then it is possible that the condition could be post-ablation tubal sterilization syndrome. The ablation procedure is designed to destroy all lining tissue, but in fact there is no way to confirm the completeness of the ablation. It is thought that either residual or regrowth of the tissue is producing the symptoms of post-endometrial ablation syndrom...
647 comments
Read more

You Have an IUD: But a Positive Pregnancy Test

By
Fortunately IUD pregnancy failures are rare. But if you have an IUD for contraception, and you get a positive pregnancy test, you probably ask yourself, what next? Well, make your gyno appointment promptly, this is a condition that is not typically an emergency, but it can be and it’s not handled over the phone or on a blog, or through self diagnosis! That being said, some researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas decided to look back at over 4100 women who had IUDs and of those 42 cases who became pregnant in their institution, over about a year period of time, to help understand what these women could expect when they got to their gyno and what actually happened to their pregnancies. Accurate pregnancy diagnosis, pelvic examination, and pelvic ultrasound were the cornerstones of the evaluations. They had very specific ways they looked at their ultrasound to prove there was no pregnancy in the fallopian tube, or partially in the fallopian tube...
199 comments
Read more